What do you like/dislike about these cows?

[Curtis36]

Regolith, I agree with you. I would cull on fertility production and temperment way before I would worry about high front quarters. Temperment is huge, especially if its a stanchion situation. My dad has gotten rid of the best cows he's had over temperment and kept the homely looking ones. It's just not worth it.

You've got some nice cows, and the fact that all they get is grass amazes me. I've never heard of anyone doing that here.

 

[Curtis36]

Whole herd average production: 19 litres 5.13% Fat 4.02% Protein 1.73 kg MS (Milksolids) SCC 76

825: 28.4 litre 5.3% fat 3.93% protein 2.63 kg MS SCC 29
216: 37.1 litre 3.56% fat 3.31% protein 2.56 kg MS SCC 39
280: 25.3 litre 4.99% fat 4.07% protein 2.29 kg MS SCC 13
137: 19.9 litre 5.68% fat 4.17% protein 1.96 kg MS SCC 120
396: 10.5 litre 5.1% fat 4.07% protein 0.97 kg MS SCC 48

at 40th cow 137 is just under 1/3 of the way down the herd - so 1/3 of the herd produced that much or more at herd test, 2/3 of the herd did less. About 10 per cent of the herd did less than 1.3 kg MS. What they eat is what they were standing on in the photos, plus water and some magnesium/selenium/rumensin as a daily drench.

Thanks for the numbers. I couldn't read the printout. Not bad at all especially for cattle on grass only. Somewhat surprising that the milk protein is that high but the jersey and jersey/cross probably help that number a bit. Exceptional SSC numbers. Don't think I've ever seen any that low. Almost "too low". Good job.

Wonder if the cell count is low cuz their outside instead of laying in a barn or freestall all day? Just my opinion...

 

[TexasBred]

Wonder if the cell count is low cuz their outside instead of laying in a barn or freestall all day? Just my opinion...

Always possible but doubtful. 90% of the dairies in this area run their cattle in pastures and still have SCC well above 200,000 and often more than 400,000. Tests that give you SCC by individual cow will often show a cow that just always has a high SCC yet no mastitis even on a subclinical basis. I think Rego's #'s just show that she is doing an excellent job in the area of hygiene with her cattle and using proper methods for ultimate udder maintenance pre and post milking and has probably already culled the old "somatic Sallies" we use to call them.

 

[Loch Valley Fold]

Bega Cheese suppliers have a 250,000 thresh hold anything over that they get docked at start 5cents/litre if nothing is done than its up to 15 cents/litre they than use a sliding scale where the SCC is averaged out over 13 weeks before the farmer is back off penalty rates.

 

[regolith]

Wonder if the cell count is low cuz their outside instead of laying in a barn or freestall all day? Just my opinion...

Always possible but doubtful. 90% of the dairies in this area run their cattle in pastures and still have SCC well above 200,000 and often more than 400,000. Tests that give you SCC by individual cow will often show a cow that just always has a high SCC yet no mastitis even on a subclinical basis. I think Rego's #'s just show that she is doing an excellent job in the area of hygiene with her cattle and using proper methods for ultimate udder maintenance pre and post milking and has probably already culled the old "somatic Sallies" we use to call them.

The cell count is normal for this time of year - it will go up a little in late lactation but I expect to average 100,000 - 130,000 for the whole season. I don't know what I'm doing right but it's probably a bit of everything. Teat spraying, finding and treating clinicals, culling repeat cases. I'm big on keeping perfect teat condition and add emollient to the teat spray to ensure that.
The milking shed has a lot to do with it & I don't have a lot of control over that.
We get financial penalties for milk over 400,000 here. I think the average for New Zealand is sitting around 220,000. What we do find is that the causes of mastitis are different here than in the UK or US. Management systems are different, yes, but I wouldn't overlook that big expanse of ocean all around us, especially when I read that you guys have antibiotic resistance issues we haven't seen here yet.

Curtis, when I do get mastitis is usually during calving in the spring. If we have a week of wet weather and the cows are calving into mud, I'll get a big cluster of cases of clinical mastitis. The weather clears up and it goes back to normal. I get about as much mastitis as the average farm, but as far as I can tell my thresholds for identifying and treating it are a lot lower - as in, some of what I treat would be categorised as subclinical.

 

[TexasBred]

I get about as much mastitis as the average farm, but as far as I can tell my thresholds for identifying and treating it are a lot lower - as in, some of what I treat would be categorised as subclinical.

And this is where you excel. Too many over here simply hang milkers and remove milkers. So much of the milking is done by hired hands (often illegal immigrants) who don't care. All they're looking for is the last cow to come thru the barn. I've seen people with problem cows inthe herd that simply would not treat them or remove them because "I need the milk". How is that for management?

 

[bigbull338]

there are ways to get your SCC down an they are time consuming.we used to dry the cows teats off with washclothes 1 to a cow.plus we would dipp the milkers in bleach between cows.an we would also dipp their teats with the best teat dipp.an following that we could keep our cell count down to 300,000.an if it flared up over that we could find a bad mastitis case real quick.if you get slack or lazy on the above the cell count would go up.

 

[Curtis36]

Wonder if the cell count is low cuz their outside instead of laying in a barn or freestall all day? Just my opinion...

Always possible but doubtful. 90% of the dairies in this area run their cattle in pastures and still have SCC well above 200,000 and often more than 400,000. Tests that give you SCC by individual cow will often show a cow that just always has a high SCC yet no mastitis even on a subclinical basis. I think Rego's #'s just show that she is doing an excellent job in the area of hygiene with her cattle and using proper methods for ultimate udder maintenance pre and post milking and has probably already culled the old "somatic Sallies" we use to call them.

Ur probly right It was just a thought cuz my dad's herd is also on pasture a large percentage of the time and he regulary gets rewards for his cells counts as well, but he also has good udder maintenance.
I didn't know texas had much of a dairy industry, so i'm learning everyday on this site

 

[bigbull338]

curtis we used to have a large number of dairies in texas.just in my home county alone there used tobe 500 dairies.an in a 6 county area 1000 or more dairies.but our county has dropped to less than 100 dairies.within 8 miles of me there used tobe 11 dairies,now theyve all closed down.

 

[GMN]

I would cull all of them. sorry.

are you nuts?

 

[GMN]

do you have SCC limits in New Zealand?

 

[TexasBred]

Ur probly right It was just a thought cuz my dad's herd is also on pasture a large percentage of the time and he regulary gets rewards for his cells counts as well, but he also has good udder maintenance.
I didn't know texas had much of a dairy industry, so i'm learning everyday on this site

Curtis, dairymen in Texas are a dieing breed. First off the climate is not conducive to dairying and even though many have the money to open a dairy, good dairymen are few and far between. They just "milk cows". I don't have an exact number but feel like probably 80% of the dairies in Texas have closed, sold out or gone broke in the past 15 years. There are still a few hot spots for dairying but most are now in West Texas and the Texas panhandle.

 

[TexasBred]

I would cull all of them. sorry.

are you nuts?

Some might thing so but I don't. Just dam picky about my cattle especially if all you have to make a judgement call on is one pic of each and nothing else.

 

[regolith]

do you have SCC limits in New Zealand?

Yes. About ten years ago we had to have a ten day average of less than 400,000 SCC. Now a single collection at 400,000 or over and you get docked so many cents a litre. It's a sliding scale so that just over 400,000 is less damaging to your income than say 700,000.
The milk company will refuse to collect from persistently grading farms. I don't think it happens a lot but it does happen. Presumably they rear calves or do beef afterwards. ...or lease their farm out to people like me (that's what happened with the organic farm I managed for two years).

 

[regolith]

I would cull all of them. sorry.

are you nuts?

Some might thing so but I don't. Just dam picky about my cattle especially if all you have to make a judgement call on is one pic of each and nothing else.

I have a really terrible photo of 137 somewhere not long after she calved last year. I'd just been saying "look at my beautiful cow" to the vet when we were dehorning calves and then went home and downloaded this photo off my camera... very often you don't see the rough coats or low condition or snotty noses or anything like that when you see them every day.
137 classified very well the other day. Didn't put up anything else pictured for classification, though maybe will do 825 next year. Fwiw I don't think any of those others would classify well on TOP, and I don't know the first thing about judging cows that way.

 

[TexasBred]

do you have SCC limits in New Zealand?

Yes. About ten years ago we had to have a ten day average of less than 400,000 SCC. Now a single collection at 400,000 or over and you get docked so many cents a litre. It's a sliding scale so that just over 400,000 is less damaging to your income than say 700,000.
The milk company will refuse to collect from persistently grading farms. I don't think it happens a lot but it does happen. Presumably they rear calves or do beef afterwards. ...or lease their farm out to people like me (that's what happened with the organic farm I managed for two years).

The state has SSC levels and base payment +/- depending on your SSC level. Some individual milk plants are also putting even more strict limits on SSC counts to ensure they get highest quality milk. Same for butterfat and protein.

 

[tncattle]

I like the looks of the grass!!