Dairy cow feeding

keep going

a couple of issues with cows at the moment.first is that the butterfat has crashed with 3 weeks and shows no sign of improving.its currently at 3.38 and pr at 3.56 and its been going steadily down with 3 weeks.tried feeding hay earlier but they wouldnt look at it so tried straw tonight which they seem more anxious for so we will see.they are on 2.5 kilos of standard 16% as you couldnt get any specials made up at our mill lately they just didnt have time and have enough grass.the other issue is they seem to be mad for chewing plastic at the moment so i reckon its some fibre issue myself.any thoughts.mainly fr by the way only less then 10 %jersey crosses







%

freedominacup

You're right about the fibre. You need to get some fibrous feed soya hulls? or citrus even as straights.

delaval

Soya hulls 3kg and drop to 2 'till it improves deffo fibre

Tipp Man

Good protein scores

Our last 2 tests were 3.51 and 3.53 with bfat of 3.87 and 3.89

As said above bit more fibre should sort you problem out. I assume the cows are more than soft??

mf240

Keep some fresh straw available at milking time and this will sort it. They will eat it if they need it.

mahoney_j

mf240 wrote: »

Keep some fresh straw available at milking time and this will sort it. They will eat it if they need it.

Definitely a lack of fibre,as said here soya hulls are a good bet but I would go for a maize based nut,I have a high yielding Holstein herd and it works really well for them,milking 33 Ltrs at 3.78 fat and 3.41 prot..if your current supplier won't supply you with what u want just go to another feed mill

Timmaay

mahoney_j wrote: »

Definitely a lack of fibre,as said here soya hulls are a good bet but I would go for a maize based nut,I have a high yielding Holstein herd and it works really well for them,milking 33 Ltrs at 3.78 fat and 3.41 prot..if your current supplier won't supply you with what u want just go to another feed mill

How much meal are you still giving yours? The spring holstiens by us are milking similar figures, on good grass but I'm still giving them about 6kg meal in the parlour. I have probably 3/4 of them served by now, I don't know should I cut back totally on the feed (they get mg in the water), or keep feeding them on with the good milk price. Quota isn't a problem. Dung is very watery by them, would it be worth while introducing more fibre in the feed? Or is that unavoidable on fresh grass.

mahoney_j

Timmaay wrote: »

How much meal are you still giving yours? The spring holstiens by us are milking similar figures, on good grass but I'm still giving them about 6kg meal in the parlour. I have probably 3/4 of them served by now, I don't know should I cut back totally on the feed (they get mg in the water), or keep feeding them on with the good milk price. Quota isn't a problem. Dung is very watery by them, would it be worth while introducing more fibre in the feed? Or is that unavoidable on fresh grass.

Feeding between 5 and 9 kg depending on yield of a high maize 16% nut.cows also at grass full time on 48 hour blocks,dung is watery enough but nothing to be worried about,ai at day 12 and have 48 out of 72 cows served and 24 out of 30 heifers so happy enough that diet and cow condition is bang on.going to be watching quots situation nationally though as I will be fairly tight,but think after last few months a lot of cows will come up short this year as regards yield

Timmaay

Do you plan on feeding them that right through the summer? On the quota front, alot of variables still in the equation like the price of milk and weather also, but a 17% decrease in cows served to AI this breeding season so far certainly looks like its going to have some effect next spring, even with an early spring the later calving cows would contribute very little to the 13/14 quota.

keep going

mahoney_j wrote: »

Definitely a lack of fibre,as said here soya hulls are a good bet but I would go for a maize based nut,I have a high yielding Holstein herd and it works really well for them,milking 33 Ltrs at 3.78 fat and 3.41 prot..if your current supplier won't supply you with what u want just go to another feed mill

i got my last load about 3 weeks ago and mills were absolutely flat out,different now but i still have it in the bin.might look for a simple mix of 2/3 hulls 1/3 maize with cal mag and trace s next time

mahoney_j

Timmaay wrote: »

Do you plan on feeding them that right through the summer? On the quota front, alot of variables still in the equation like the price of milk and weather also, but a 17% decrease in cows served to AI this breeding season so far certainly looks like its going to have some effect next spring, even with an early spring the later calving cows would contribute very little to the 13/14 quota.

Plan on keeping it up for next month anyway as I've a few cows milking up to 60 Ltrs and they Ned every bit of the 9 kg that they are getting,will also be bumping up the s rate to over 4 for a bit of the next few weeks by pulling out light silage for bales.