condition scoring

Greengrass1

how many do it?
im doing mine on tuesday with help of advisor.
at a glanbia meeting other night and the speaker said of the 700 plus farmers they had talked to only half a dozen were scoring cows.

Milked out

Only a few may record it but I assume most would do it when grouping feeding cows naturally anyway. As with grass measuring figures would be no harm to focus the mind a bit

mahoney_j

Nope don't do it,always happy with stock weights here as they are adequately supplemented at grass all year and calves are offered hi protein meal for first 12 months.making high quality silage and use of minerals also helps.guys I see at it are the ones trying to run things on a shoestring,cow gets to dry off and is skin and bone or not far off it and needs a heap of meal over winter on crap silage to build her up again.

Greengrass1

mahoney_j wrote: »

Nope don't do it,always happy with stock weights here as they are adequately supplemented at grass all year and calves are offered hi protein meal for first 12 months.making high quality silage and use of minerals also helps.guys I see at it are the ones trying to run things on a shoestring,cow gets to dry off and is skin and bone or not far off it and needs a heap of meal over winter on crap silage to build her up again.

Every one has some cows that need a bit more feeding than the rest its really finding them cows and looking at individual cows.
Majority of herd here I would say are at 3 and the I have cows that are well over that and then there's cows that are below that.
The main thing I think is if cows are kept full of grub after calving weight loss is minimal

mahoney_j

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Every one has some cows that need a bit more feeding than the rest its really finding them cows and looking at individual cows.
Majority of herd here I would say are at 3 and the I have cows that are well over that and then there's cows that are below that.
The main thing I think is if cows are kept full of grub after calving weight loss is minimal

Yep good quality high energy consistent diet to cows after calving is cruical,have to say I'm pretty happy with condition of all cows and incalfs this year.their dry cow diet will be 75 dad put silage plus straw and minerals till calving.i really hate having to meal dry cows,vet once commented to me if you've to meal dry cows you havnt been feeding them right all year whilst milking

frazzledhome

mahoney_j wrote: »

Nope don't do it,always happy with stock weights here as they are adequately supplemented at grass all year and calves are offered hi protein meal for first 12 months.making high quality silage and use of minerals also helps.guys I see at it are the ones trying to run things on a shoestring,cow gets to dry off and is skin and bone or not far off it and needs a heap of meal over winter on crap silage to build her up again.

Same here and I couldn't agree more

Dawggone

mahoney_j wrote: »

Nope don't do it,always happy with stock weights here as they are adequately supplemented at grass all year and calves are offered hi protein meal for first 12 months.making high quality silage and use of minerals also helps.guys I see at it are the ones trying to run things on a shoestring,cow gets to dry off and is skin and bone or not far off it and needs a heap of meal over winter on crap silage to build her up again.

+1.

Not allowed in some discussion groups to exceed 300kg concentrates!:)

Makes more sense to feed in lactation.

Drys just on good hay here until 10-14 days before calving. Makes for handier calving also.

milkprofit

Greengrass1 wrote: »

how many do it?
im doing mine on tuesday with help of advisor.
at a glanbia meeting other night and the speaker said of the 700 plus farmers they had talked to only half a dozen were scoring cows.

Always

mahoney_j

milkprofit wrote: »

Always

Not been smart lads but why,if u have to do it it means u ain't paying enough attention to stock during the year or feeding correctly.

milkprofit

mahoney_j wrote: »

Not been smart lads but why,if u have to do it it means u ain't paying enough attention to stock during the year or feeding correctly.

That's exactly what I mean I monitor all the time how else could u look after ur stock

Mehaffey1

Big focus on it here in NZ but very little gets done about it, shoestring feeding is right.

Greengrass1

Told cows are in too good condition and to watch they dont put on too much more weight.
Intakes still high at 11/12/day