Methods off drying off.

[easy farming]

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.

We replace the silage with hay for 10 days before we start drying off, the grass is restricted by then anyway. Last 3 rows being dried off Saturday we are averaging 7-8 litres now. OAD full time though.

 

[SantaCruz]

We have our feed to yield set to drop meal in the parlour to 0 a week before dryoff, dry them off in the parlour after milking once everything has been washed down and then just steiafht into the rest of the far off dry cows which are all 8 to 4 weeks off calving. Feed is a 1st cut haylage that we bale for the dry cows. Once at 4 weeks off calving they go into the close up group and get the same bales but with 2kg of pre Calver nut.

Most cows are drying off between 12 and 18 litres and seems to be working ok

 

[daibach57]

we put them on dry cow mix 3 days before drying off and milk once a day