Arla sustainability/ animal robustness

[jerseycowsman]

I didn’t want this lost in the arla thread.
Part of the sustainability box ticking is the animal robustness points. You basically loose points if too many cows die or get put down on farm. I lost 10 out of 325 on farm last year and am loosing half my points! There is no direct penalty for sending a lot of culls off. So my gripe is this is just encouraging me to send cows off earlier because they may die on farm and cause me penalties. This obviously flies in the face of encouraging longevity!
Am I wrong or right?

 

[FarmerWasty]

Think of it in carbon terms. Which is more ecofriendly? The dead one which meat cant be used, or the one butchered.

 

[Henarar]

Are you actually going to decide culling policy based on how many points you get from a bunch of idiots that clearly haven't got a clue ?

 

[TheRanger]

Now now, you're not supposed to discuss Arla matters on the open forum.

 

[sidjon]

Same with some of the stupid stuff, our slurry goes through dung spreader because it's too high a DM% to go through a tanker, so don't use splash plate, but can't get the point for it because I don't use a dribble bar, which clearly can't spread high dm slurry, only got some uploading to and feed plan of some sort as do my own simple nutrition .

 

[Fergieman]

You'll get 3 out of a possible 5 points, which at 0.03euro cent per point for the 2 points lost comes to approx £500 per year for 1,000,000 litres. Save a cow and it'll pay for the lost points.
For the full 5 points you would need to loose 4 or less cows at your numbers.

 

[lazy farmer]

You'll get 3 out of a possible 5 points, which at 0.03euro cent per point for the 2 points lost comes to approx £500 per year for 1,000,000 litres. Save a cow and it'll pay for the lost points.
For the full 5 points you would need to loose 4 or less cows at your numbers.

It should make arla farmers look at why they are losing cows and what could be done to reduce numbers.
here last yr we lost 2 out of 264
This yr we have lost 4 out of 263so far (which has really played on my mind) . 3 of which fell over. So we are scrapping up differently to prevent dry muck building up and we will do some more grooving on the more worn spots.
maybe these things are obvious and all farmers are/would do the same and perhaps more. But maybe they are not and need financial encouragement.

 

[Princess Pooper]

We are not with Arla but 3 years ago our vet said we would win a prize for obscure cow deaths. In the space of 3 months, out of 80 milkers we lost one 3rd lactation, with a suspected brain tumour (culled on welfare grounds), one young cow with something weird affecting her nervous system (not BSE, not nervous ketosis, not staggers, nor anything else 2 experienced farm vets could think of) and one that was found dead in cubicle the day after turnout, only out for a couple of hours on a nice sunny day, presume either a heart attack or a wire that got moved around in all the excitement (we do use magnets).

What the hell are we supposed to do about those, management wise?

 

[sidjon]

We are not with Arla but 3 years ago our vet said we would win a prize for obscure cow deaths. In the space of 3 months, out of 80 milkers we lost one 3rd lactation, with a suspected brain tumour (culled on welfare grounds), one young cow with something weird affecting her nervous system (not BSE, not nervous ketosis, not staggers, nor anything else 2 experienced farm vets could think of) and one that was found dead in cubicle the day after turnout, only out for a couple of hours on a nice sunny day, presume either a heart attack or a wire that got moved around in all the excitement (we do use magnets).

What the hell are we supposed to do about those, management wise?

Not a lot, lost 3 cow's this year , one heart attack from a cow purchased a week before, one had torn a leg ligament bulling in a field by herself and other had broken down with what we thought was johnes , but her blood were clear, so was a bit of a unknown, but vet said we should have tested for poisoning.

 

[In the pit]

We loose cows seemingly all the time and all we get from the vets is “she must of eaten something”

 

[jerseycowsman]

Think of it in carbon terms. Which is more ecofriendly? The dead one which meat cant be used, or the one butchered.

If the dead one is on her 8th lactation and the one in the hook is on her 4th, which has the bigger carbon footprint?

 

[jerseycowsman]

It should make arla farmers look at why they are losing cows and what could be done to reduce numbers.
here last yr we lost 2 out of 264
This yr we have lost 4 out of 263so far (which has really played on my mind) . 3 of which fell over. So we are scrapping up differently to prevent dry muck building up and we will do some more grooving on the more worn spots.
maybe these things are obvious and all farmers are/would do the same and perhaps more. But maybe they are not and need financial encouragement.

What’s the average lactation age of your herd?

 

[lazy farmer]

What’s the average lactation age of your herd?

5.6 lactations
We loose too many cows empty.
It’s no justification but when we are TB free our empty 1st to 4 th calvers have been lucky enough to get another chance on an autumn calving herd in Cornwall.
we sell less than 10% to the factory in a TB free yr
No idea what any of that means in terms of Carbon.

 

[lazy farmer]

Just to make things more complicated from a carbon point of you. We will do some voluntary culling this season as we have a few SSC millionaires to go.

 

[sidjon]

5.6 lactations
We loose too many cows empty.
It’s no justification but when we are TB free our empty 1st to 4 th calvers have been lucky enough to get another chance on an autumn calving herd in Cornwall.
we sell less than 10% to the factory in a TB free yr
No idea what any of that means in terms of Carbon.

We buy mixed aged cow's and most stay for 3 years on average, but age can be from 2 years to 13 years, so can have a high cull rate some years, but don't really know how this affects our carbon footprint stuff

 

[Sid]

Looks like there is even more financial emphasis on getting a cow up the ramp rather than doing the right thing by her welfare wise.

 

[jerseycowsman]

Looks like there is even more financial emphasis on getting a cow up the ramp rather than doing the right thing by her welfare wise.

Yes, that’s part of the point I’m making

 

[jerseycowsman]

If I’m willing to take the loss of shooting her on farm, because I’m willing to give her longer to get better, why am I being penalised for that?

 

[lazy farmer]

If I’m willing to take the loss of shooting her on farm, because I’m willing to give her longer to get better, why am I being penalised for that?

Regardless of form filling and points achieving I would/do focus on the whys And what can be done if anything to avoid them in the future.

 

[Sid]

If I’m willing to take the loss of shooting her on farm, because I’m willing to give her longer to get better, why am I being penalised for that?

It's the "how long do you give them" question.

That varies from person to person