once a day milking post quota

seanmc84

Hi everyone
I'm looking for thoughts on once a day milking.
We currently milk between 80 and 100 mostly holstien cows with some jersey and jex cows.
I'm thinking of changing my system for lifestyle reasons but I'm not sure the benefits outweigh the costs. I'd like to hear from others especially people who've been at it a while
Regards
Sean

Timmaay

seanmc84 wrote: »

Hi everyone
I'm looking for thoughts on once a day milking.
We currently milk between 80 and 100 mostly holstien cows with some jersey and jex cows.
I'm thinking of changing my system for lifestyle reasons but I'm not sure the benefits outweigh the costs. I'd like to hear from others especially people who've been at it a while
Regards
Sean

Was a very good thread about it a while ago, including a newspaper article about a farmer who successfully changed over, the main drawbacks are you will have a large cull rate 1st year, when unsuitable cows will simply dry themselves off in August, also SCC will probably double, so high SCC cows will cause problems. But these problems get ironed out after 2 or 3yrs, and the farmer in the article was back up close to 400kgMS per cow. Is it worth it, hard to know to be honest, you definitely should compare the costs of staying twice a day and getting milk relief in 1s a day (assuming you are happy with this, and can source regular milkers) , this should cost approx 50e/milking, or 16k a year, in terms of milk volume that 500l or about 35kgMS per cow (with 100cows), I'd say you'd be losing a decent bit more than by going from TAD to OAD.

seanmc84

Timmaay wrote: »

Was a very good thread about it a while ago, including a newspaper article about a farmer who successfully changed over, the main drawbacks are you will have a large cull rate 1st year, when unsuitable cows will simply dry themselves off in August, also SCC will probably double, so high SCC cows will cause problems. But these problems get ironed out after 2 or 3yrs, and the farmer in the article was back up close to 400kgMS per cow. Is it worth it, hard to know to be honest, you definitely should compare the costs of staying twice a day and getting milk relief in 1s a day (assuming you are happy with this, and can source regular milkers) , this should cost approx 50e/milking, or 16k a year, in terms of milk volume that 500l or about 35kgMS per cow (with 100cows), I'd say you'd be losing a decent bit more than by going from TAD to OAD.

I was planning on over coming the scc and culling rates by gradually moving to OAD starting by only milking my heifers each year I figure my older tad cows will be phased out in three or four years

seanmc84

seanmc84 wrote: »

I was planning on over coming the scc and culling rates by gradually moving to OAD starting by only milking my heifers each year I figure my older tad cows will be phased out in three or four years

Also going by your figures at a price of 30cent a litre there is only a slight loss on oad which I can negate by milking more cows

the_blue_oval

its something ive looked into a small bit and is something ill give serious thought to when i take over the farm at home.

only real negatives i could see in it are the lower yields, the cost of the 4-5 years transitioning from TAD to OAD, and the rise in SCC. but a lot of pieces i read on it say that if you change over to OAD when scc is under control then it is not really an issue.

advantages of it:
lower labour costs
better lifestyle
lower energy costs due to the parlour only being used half as much
similar milk solids from less meal
more lactations per cow
lower replacement rate (10%)
less lameness
better bcs- better fertility- more compact calving/lower empty rate
less feed required over winter due to better bcs

seanmc84

the_blue_oval wrote: »

its something ive looked into a small bit and is something ill give serious thought to when i take over the farm at home.

only real negatives i could see in it are the lower yields, the cost of the 4-5 years transitioning from TAD to OAD, and the rise in SCC. but a lot of pieces i read on it say that if you change over to OAD when scc is under control then it is not really an issue.

advantages of it:
lower labour costs
better lifestyle
lower energy costs due to the parlour only being used half as much
similar milk solids from less meal
more lactations per cow
lower replacement rate (10%)
less lameness
better bcs- better fertility- more compact calving/lower empty rate
less feed required over winter due to better bcs

Yeah I've read all of these conclusions that's why I'm considering it

Sam Kade

the_blue_oval wrote: »

its something ive looked into a small bit and is something ill give serious thought to when i take over the farm at home.

only real negatives i could see in it are the lower yields, the cost of the 4-5 years transitioning from TAD to OAD, and the rise in SCC. but a lot of pieces i read on it say that if you change over to OAD when scc is under control then it is not really an issue.

advantages of it:
lower labour costs
better lifestyle
lower energy costs due to the parlour only being used half as much
similar milk solids from less meal
more lactations per cow
lower replacement rate (10%)
less lameness
better bcs- better fertility- more compact calving/lower empty rate
less feed required over winter due to better bcs

You'll be using the parlour more than half as much because of extra cows with extra milk at each milking.