I am thinking I will have to increase it to 3 weeks, it is hard at busy calving periods because I end up with more in the straw court but I am happy to make that sacrifice.
Pre calving dry cow diet
- Thread starter farmer JD
- Start date
My feeling tonight is that there is too much straw in the dry cow ration and that is what is supressing intakes. I don't feed straw in the millers tmr so they are not used to eating straw and currently the far offs are at grass. I am then bringing them in and expecting them to eat this giant pile of straw.
I feed a tmr made of maize silage, grass silage and wholecrop wheat. I also feed a home made blend made up of beet pulp, soya, maize gluten and wheat distillers. Other ingredient in the tmr is causitc trered wheat. My feed regime is far from simple. I realise this!
Clay52
Member
- Location
- Outer Space
If they are only on close up for 2 weeks that's not enough. 3 weeks minimum and I've gone to 4 weeks. What are the far off dry cows being fed.
Just reducing straw isn't the right step with the current information you have put forward. You said that the problem started with big groups of cows. That's an indication to the problem. Are they overcrowed with the bigger groups?
What is the overall NDF of the close up ration. Unless there is an issue with the straw quality at this point I doubt too much straw is the issue. Especially when you are chopping it and mixing it.
Like I said before you need to know how accurate the dry matter is for the silage. You need to know actual DM intakes. You need to know NDF levels. Timings of when problems started, what changed at the point. Is the dry silage a problem.
You are not really answering the questions needed to get to the bottom of this.
More to life
Member
- Location
- Somerset
If it's a fairly resent problem I would suggest turning out the far off drys is the cause. Six kg straw works welll for me but they eat it start to finish it's just not going to work over 2 weeks so either the close up diet needs altering or the cows need housing. I personally feel grass and dry Holsteins is a dreadful combination in the spring.
buffalo_soldier
Member
- Location
- cumbria
Yes, i agree with the above two posts.
The system at the moment seems as though it is trying to do a bit of everything.
Either needs simplifying or intensifying.
The system at the moment seems as though it is trying to do a bit of everything.
Either needs simplifying or intensifying.
supercow
Member
- Location
- Dumfriesshire
Our cows dropped a litre last winter when we added half kilo of straw into the diet, straw in my mind does more harm than good in dry silage! @meekers ur dry diet is mental, got to be expensive and time consuming. We have had about 3 milk fevers in 4 years, our last lda was last frebruary I think, and before that I can't even remember, only retained cleansings are from twins and bad calvings, all we feed is nice haylage in a ring feeder and mineral buckets and a bit of bocm cake
I'm the same. Nice haylage for all dry cows and mineral licks and then housed in calving pen 3 weeks off calving and get For Farmers translac advanced cake along with bit of milking ration and I hardly get any problems
Clay52
Member
- Location
- Outer Space
One thing to be carful with people recommending their system and saying their system has very few problems. First what is very few problems. Some have very different definitions. My dad thought that 25% conception rate, 30% of calves having to be pulled and over 5% of the herd getting LDAs was acceptable problems for a high production herd. Even though production was under 8000.
And second what achieves low problems for a 5000lt herd may not work with a 10000+ herd. This is why I'm not saying make wholesale changes and go to the simple system that people are suggesting. Need to find the actual problem and adjust to fix that, I may be wrong but by his answers it seems he is not that interesting in finding the actual problem anyway.
It's often my experience with farmers, many don't want to fix the problems, they want an excuse to why they can't fix the problem and just be able to keep doing what they were doing.
And second what achieves low problems for a 5000lt herd may not work with a 10000+ herd. This is why I'm not saying make wholesale changes and go to the simple system that people are suggesting. Need to find the actual problem and adjust to fix that, I may be wrong but by his answers it seems he is not that interesting in finding the actual problem anyway.
It's often my experience with farmers, many don't want to fix the problems, they want an excuse to why they can't fix the problem and just be able to keep doing what they were doing.
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lazy farmer
Member
- Location
- som/dor border
a lot of truth there.
supercow
Member
- Location
- Dumfriesshire
I'm sorry for trying to help a brother out,il not do it again, death rate 3/4%, 10000 herd, rarely pull a calve, rarely have a hung cleansing,milk fever one every 2 years,35% conception rate, once again I sincerely apologise stating what works for us and could potentially help one person out a wee bit, il definately not be doing that again.
supercow
Member
- Location
- Dumfriesshire
Out of interest do you have a agricultural adviser? Consultant ?
supercow
Member
- Location
- Dumfriesshire
Ye 5/6 years ago we had crazy problems, so many hung cleanings, milk fever, da's, and i got great advice from our harbro nutritionist. And advice from bocm, harbro advised hayledge. Things were done so differently back then, dry cows got the worst feed. Such bad bad silage, and no minerals were ever offered. I was physically sick back then, so things needed to change and I massively notice the difference from the change, rarely use antibiotics for hung cleanings and give the odd cow a bottle of calcium. I'm sure a lot of it is luck however!
supercow
Member
- Location
- Dumfriesshire
I'm saying all this a few months before our peak calving I hope I'm not jinxing things!!
What's everyone's verdict on pre calving cows which r fat had one calf tonigh she had a big calf gave her calcium, and propylene glycol , I think she would have been a candidate for kexxtone bolus does anyone use them ? What's your protocols for pre calving cows which are fat I'm on about just odd ones
supercow
Member
- Location
- Dumfriesshire
I was going to ask that same question couple weeks ago! I gave a fatter cow that had been dry too long a kexxtone bolus, she really wasn't doing well vet said fatty liver. Milking after I gave her the bolus her milk picked up and looking a lot better, gave another cow a bolus tonight again, I'm the same don't give boluses to many cows, they are the first 2 boluses iv used in a while. I'm defo going to give fat cows boluses from now on
dinderleat
Member
- Location
- Wells
Use a targeted approach with kexxtonne as in only fat cows or high CI. Seems to work well certainly get less problems with weighty cows