Separating milking heifers

[Bald Rick]

Currently we just bosh the heifers in with the cows as they calve as they will have transitioned with some cows for at least 3-4 weeks prior. Being Jerseys, they don't take much sh!t from their elders either and on the surface, it appears to work just fine but I am set to wondering if they (the heifers) would be happier with their own in a bespoke heifer group.
Does anyone do this? Benefits or does it create addition ballache?

 

[Cowmangav]

Did it for many years. We at one time had a milking heifer group of 140 +. Milked them first through the parlour , cutting down cross infections from older cows. Either bedded entirely on straw , or group split between cubicles and straw , swapping at each milking. Heifers didn't seem to weed as easily as cows do on straw bedding in the very humid west of Scotland autumn and winter. Our calving age was a bit older as we had plenty of acres not fit for anything but "older" youngstock rearing. For example acres of upland grazing that wouldn't have supported in calf heifers , calving at 2yr , but fine for those calving at 2yr 10m +. This meant that our heifers didn't get hard feeding before they calved , and having them milking on straw for first lactation , cut way down on solar ulcers etc once they were on dairy rations. However this was back when straw wasn't too dear , and we had two big covered silage pits (each 43 ft by 120 ft ) that were empty a lot of the time , because our cows were often in by August due to wetness. This let us expand cow numbers with no housing or slurry handling cost, just the straw. The extra silage capacity that was needed was provided by outdoor earth pits , so we ate the covered pits first ( just needed one for the milk heifers - which could be in cubicles later utilised by low yielder group , until one pit was mostly eaten.). It was possible to self feed the last couple of bays of silage to the heifer group. We calved all the year round ( for retail ) , so having a heifer group meant new calved heifers were with cattle they had been reared with , and didn't have to fight with dominant cows. Ayrshires are not wild by anymeans, but they are a bit more self assertive than " just let me die " Holsteins. The low yielder group of about 120 were late lactation and quite woolly by that stage , so could stay out on old pastures for a bit longer , at low stocking rates , while the heifer and high yielder groups were cubicle housed. But bear in mind I'm only talking about September !

 

[upnortheast]

With your generously sized sheds probably not as important as in the old days of 8 ft cubicle passages & 10 ft feeding passages.
Depends if you feel you heifers need a different diet to get them to grow on

 

[More to life]

Unless you block calve the bullying would be the same as in with the herd. The only advantage I can see is the option to feed differently.

 

[Rossymons]

Currently we just bosh the heifers in with the cows as they calve as they will have transitioned with some cows for at least 3-4 weeks prior. Being Jerseys, they don't take much sh!t from their elders either and on the surface, it appears to work just fine but I am set to wondering if they (the heifers) would be happier with their own in a bespoke heifer group.
Does anyone do this? Benefits or does it create addition ballache?

We did as you and mixed our I/C heifers with our dry cows. We looked at splitting them but as very few heifers failed to make a 2nd calving we felt that they came in to the herd in good shape and stayed that way so why change?

How much uplift in yield do you think you would achieve by splitting them? If it's less than 4-5kgs I'd say forget it because the extra hassle and work of another group would probably negate the benefits.

 

[Grassman247]

We used to keep heifers seperate, transitioned them sperately, calved them separately and then milked them separately.

It lasted 2 years and we went back to mixing them with the cows, they were so much better behaved in with the cows. Seemed to be a nightmare on there own

 

[Cowmangav]

Unless you block calve the bullying would be the same as in with the herd. The only advantage I can see is the option to feed differently.

Not really as the larger , heavier cows are out of the picture. We had 750 cows in four sheds - so it made sense to have four groups. Even at grass , our gate areas couldn't handle more than 150 cows.