Transition cows

[Whisper64]

Looking for advice/ideas.

We are a AYR herd averaging 6500l with Channel Islands cows. Have a mixer wagon which the milkers are fed blend, fodder beet and grass silage. Dry cows were fed through mixer wagon too but we were experiencing fresh cow problems.

For the last 3-4 months we have moved to feeding round bales from low input land with low P and K values and dry cow rolls. Although things have improved with less retained cleansing, ketosis, whites etc things are still not fantastic. We have taken bloods with our vets and these are suggesting that the close up calvers have not got enough energy.

I was just wandering what people’s dry cow diets are and what they have had success with as obviously something is not working with ours!

 

[Rolie]

First things first do they have enough feeding space to all eat at once?

Our ration is 2kg straw, 9.5kg wholecrop, 9.5kg good silage, 15kg low p + k stemmy bale, 150g minerals, 2kg dry cow rolls. Biggest thing we found for retained cleansing and whites was giving them mineral boluses at dry off. We are in a low selenium/iodine area so supplements is essential. Have u done a mineral assessment of your forage to know what their getting. We get maybe 1 RC each year now, they even cleanse after twins themselves

 

[Princess Pooper]

Our Holsteins get a dry cow mineral bolus at drying off and then either graze stemmy grass or once housed (2-3 weeks prior to calving) ad lib hay and a bit of fodder beet! We used to put them on a bit more of the milking ration prior to calving but have been persuaded to change with very few issues (we were reluctant to change as we had few issues before). Most soils in UK are selenium deficient so good dry cow minerals essential and with rolls they might not all be getting some.

 

[More to life]

Dry cow rolls are a very expensive way of delivering minerals when you own a wagon. Good quality minerals some Milker’s ration and straw is all you need.

 

[Llmmm]

Looking for advice/ideas.

We are a AYR herd averaging 6500l with Channel Islands cows. Have a mixer wagon which the milkers are fed blend, fodder beet and grass silage. Dry cows were fed through mixer wagon too but we were experiencing fresh cow problems.

For the last 3-4 months we have moved to feeding round bales from low input land with low P and K values and dry cow rolls. Although things have improved with less retained cleansing, ketosis, whites etc things are still not fantastic. We have taken bloods with our vets and these are suggesting that the close up calvers have not got enough energy.

I was just wandering what people’s dry cow diets are and what they have had success with as obviously something is not working with ours!

Have alot of pure jersey cows on spring calving when there dried off in autumn there pretty thin and by the time they calve there in perfect condition however i would almost never carry over any cow which does not go in calf these are a disaster and endless problems with milk fever etc an overfat jersey at calving is a disaster i wouldnt like to be ayr calving them