Methods off drying off.

lazy farmer · Nov 18, 2021

We never get this right. We put cows onto straw for a day. Only milk them once. Dry them off. Leave on straw for another day. Then introduce the dry cow diet.
during this period they are very noisy obviously hating it. It was bare able when we dry off over a week now we do it over 4 days. It’s bloody noisy.
no issues with milk on beds or mastitis doing it this way.
is there a more cow friendly way.
they will be avg 15 litres roughly at drying off.

frederick · Nov 18, 2021

lazy farmer said:
We never get this right. We put cows onto straw for a day. Only milk them once. Dry them off. Leave on straw for another day. Then introduce the dry cow diet.
during this period they are very noisy obviously hating it. It was bare able when we dry off over a week now we do it over 4 days. It’s bloody noisy.
no issues with milk on beds or mastitis doing it this way.
is there a more cow friendly way.
they will be avg 15 litres roughly at drying off.

Yes milk them for another fortnight until their doing 10 litres

lazy farmer · Nov 18, 2021

frederick said:
Yes milk them for another fortnight until their doing 10 litres

How dare you ! It would take at least three weeks!

More to life · Nov 18, 2021

lazy farmer said:
We never get this right. We put cows onto straw for a day. Only milk them once. Dry them off. Leave on straw for another day. Then introduce the dry cow diet.
during this period they are very noisy obviously hating it. It was bare able when we dry off over a week now we do it over 4 days. It’s bloody noisy.
no issues with milk on beds or mastitis doing it this way.
is there a more cow friendly way.
they will be avg 15 litres roughly at drying off.

stop faffing about,milker one minute dry cow the next simple.

Milkcow365 · Nov 18, 2021

Same as @More to life and plenty are dried off giving 30+

lazy farmer · Nov 18, 2021

Thomas-milmain said:
Same as @More to life and plenty are dried off giving 30+

What diet after drying off?

Milkcow365 · Nov 18, 2021

lazy farmer said:
What diet after drying off?

Just straight onto dry cow diet, only two diets on farm dry cow or milk cow.

Princess Pooper · Nov 18, 2021

Step the cake down prior to drying off, ours would be giving 10-15l usually at dry off. Milk, seal, dry cow bolus, turn out (even at this time of year) and graze. When they come in, it's onto hay, a lick bucket and a few bits of fodder beet prior to calving. Hay at grass if weather is crap.

pappuller · Nov 18, 2021

lazy farmer said:
We never get this right. We put cows onto straw for a day. Only milk them once. Dry them off. Leave on straw for another day. Then introduce the dry cow diet.
during this period they are very noisy obviously hating it. It was bare able when we dry off over a week now we do it over 4 days. It’s bloody noisy.
no issues with milk on beds or mastitis doing it this way.
is there a more cow friendly way.
they will be avg 15 litres roughly at drying off.

You do like to complicate things.......

it's not over · Nov 18, 2021

They'll be easier dried off next year when dairy cake hits £400/ton

Hill Dairy · Nov 18, 2021

We stick them on hay/haulage and cut cake down for around four days prior litres drop down to 10/11. Then milk am and start drying off midday using sealant and do the whole lot in one go can pick a dry day then. We will dry off the 8% or so that need ab's prior so it's simple. We dry off end of Jan so they can't be turned out unfortunately.

buffalo_soldier · Nov 19, 2021

It would take a week/10 days for a straw only diet to have any effect. 48hrs is just needlessly disruption, hence the noise.
Milk as normal, seal, drycow ration.

Talk about making work

LTH · Nov 19, 2021

We milk ours once a day about 10 days before dry off, a calf would suckle a cow less as it gets closer to being weaned, but they’re friesians so could probably dry off 3 months before sometimes

Hotspur · Nov 19, 2021

Cold Turkey here. Could be giving 35 litres on TMR but just Orbeseal and either out field in summer or straight into dry group.

betweenthelines · Nov 19, 2021

Reduce the quality of their diet earlier so they are giving less at drying off.

Any litres you lose at the back of a lactation will come back with interest in the next one.

More to life · Nov 19, 2021

betweenthelines said:
Reduce the quality of their diet earlier so they are giving less at drying off.

Any litres you lose at the back of a lactation will come back with interest in the next one.

No not at all,under feed a cow and they lose wieght.

O'Reilly · Nov 20, 2021

I doubt lazy's cows will milk themselves to death at the end of a lactation. Kiwi cows look after themselves.

lazy farmer · Nov 20, 2021

O'Reilly said:
I doubt lazy's cows will milk themselves to death at the end of a lactation. Kiwi cows look after themselves.

Most of them. A few are on oad. As I have no way of putting weight on during the dry period as we only have one group of cows. (Plus my house cow!)

jerseycowsman · Nov 21, 2021

lazy farmer said:
What diet after drying off?

We just dry them off, same silage the day before as day after. Why you complicating it so much???
Only thing we do is put more lime in beds for a few days till no more leaked milk

Spudley · Nov 21, 2021

jerseycowsman said:
We just dry them off, same silage the day before as day after. Why you complicating it so much???
Only thing we do is put more lime in beds for a few days till no more leaked milk

We do pretty much the same, we only have one silage clamp so everyone gets the same

and it's only the last 3 years that we even separated the dry cows from the milkers. We do at least cut out concentrates in the 10 days before drying off.

Methods off drying off.

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