Dairy

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“a modern country practice dedicated to all species”

dairy

NEWSLETTERS

Cow and heifer fertility

Infertility is the biggest source of wastage in a dairy herd, but also a great opportunity for one to improve profitability. We are committed to doing more than just pregnancy diagnosis and treatment of non-bullers, by identifying the causes of infertility, whether these are nutrition, lameness, infectious disease, stress, or breeding. We offer a fertility contract on a fixed pence per litre basis and this includes quarterly management meetings, preferably with other members of the team where we analyse data collated using Interherd. Trends are discussed and improvements proposed.

Lameness

Working with foot trimmers and exchanging information is part of our team approach. As well as treating lame cows we offer mobility scoring for herd lameness assessment, using the recently introduced Dairy Co scoring system. We offer advice on housing, cubicle design and foot bathing and do foot trimming training sessions in small groups for any of your interested staff. A fixed rate lameness contract is available to include twice yearly mobility scoring with treatment of lame cows. Currently there is also part funding available for mobility scoring, training and on farm advice under the Healthy Livestock Initiative.

Mastitis

The practice uses Interherd/Herd Companion (NMR) to monitor cell counts and mastitis incidence. We offer a mastitis contract which includes monthly analysis of milk recordings with individual advice on problem cows, bacteriology on problem cows and (optional) a regular parlour visit to take samples and assess cows, milking plant and milking routine. This is currently part funded by the Healthy Livestock Initiative. The practice is approved to use the recently introduced Dairy Co mastitis plan, which includes a comprehensive risk assessment of the milking plant and environment as well as identifying and eliminating the causes. We can also carry out instant cell count testing of milk.

Infectious disease control

We offer tailor-made control and eradication strategies for infectious diseases like BVD, Johne’s disease, neospora abortions and leptospirosis. We encourage all our farms to monitor bulk milk for infectious diseases and use occasions like TB tests to monitor groups of animals (e.g. youngstock) where appropriate. We use an online based health planning tool (myhealthyherd.com) for risk assessment and to develop and monitor a control plan. We support and use the recent move of milk recording companies (NMR and CIS) to help us monitor infectious diseases at no extra hassle for sample taking. For some herds CHeCS accreditation for disease free status may be a suitable option, especially if selling pedigree stock. Part funding for BVD and Johne’s control is currently available under the Healthy Livestock Initiative.

Nutrition

Our special interest and in depth knowledge of nutrition ‘from the cows’ point of view’ enables us to assess rations, feed presentation and intakes. We regularly analyse dry matter of silage, cow condition scores, dung consistency and where necessary blood or rumen fluid to identify imbalances. Rations can be checked using our DietCheck programme.

Bull fertility

Most farms use bulls for some of the animals. A subfertile or infertile bull can have serious consequences, whether just used on heifers or as a sweeper bull for cows after AI. For this reason we offer a bull fertility testing service, where we examine and assess the bull and collect a semen sample which we examine under the microscope. Click here for a poster