no kick bar here …find they just drive heifers mad …..big battery clamp high up on tail quietens most ….if she’s still acting the …. Just leave them off till next milking …beteeeen. Busting with milk and clamp usually fine ….worst thing with heifers if there pissing u off is to get frustrated
Cheers straight,it for a calf to beef setup at the minute but possibly 60-70 cows in the future..all 32mm pipe
Have a really good method here using a ratchet strap for tying them up, any kickers get tied up till they get out of the habit usually takes 2-3 milkings
If you let a heifer get into the habit of kicking of clusters your in bother
Also you should enjoy milking not be dreading it.
98% of it is the breeding. If farmers breed the kickers. Kickers you shall milk. Thought most farmers had their breeding strategy not to be having replacements out of these. Had bulls from a farm that thought nothing of kickers. Progeny then had half those traits. Had another bull from a different farm. Heifers never lifted a leg.
Run heifers through the parlour first before calving and have them used to the noise and meal in troughs. Then squeeze between cows when calved.
Dairying is a right lark..😎
THeir leg?
Their back left leg our right depending on what side of parlour, make a loop in strap like a calving rope tie it above the middle hock, loop rope around leg give it a tighten, repeat a second/third time depending how flighty a heifer she is the idea is to lift the leg up of the ground heifer can't kick with only one leg on ground, would do the above aswell when you get a cranky cow at drying off
i always found the kicking bar dangerous. your leaving yourself very open to a kick when your putting it on. same with tying the leg to the rail. very hard to avoid a kick when your hands are in the firing line. also next milking i used to find a real bitch would throw out a kick if your walking past or putting on the unit beside her. theres one every year!
I put on cluster straight after meal and hold cluster between legs and move it while she kicks the rail. When she calms down I rub her or hold the tail and twist it a little. Works for most. I could put 24 in a 20 row at times and not milk the heifer the first time or two. Maybe 1 out of 20 I'd use the bar(a very tight one) I remember forgetting to take it off and the heifers came in the following milking with it on!! I d be on my own so have no one to hold the tail etc
Had the best (easiest) milking so far this evening and the comments from people on here were a great help.
(1) Myself and the 16-year-old brought in 6 at a time: 3-4 first and then get them into position and eating, then another 2-3 walk up easy enough behind them. Squeeze them in tight with a pallet and a chain holding the pallet in place.
(2) I used the clamp on one's tail but she was the only one this evening. Maybe it's no coincidence she's the biggest pet out in the cubicle shed - you could rub her dug and she'd just stand there. But as soon as she gets into the parlour her head is up and down, and she's kicking. I took the clamp off when I had the cluster on (for the 3rd f*cking time) as I thought she might be OK but she kicked again so she got to wear the clamp til she was milked.
(3) We also made sure none of the known messers were beside each other in the parlour. Two were beside each other yesterday evening and they had great craic kicking off their clusters down in their sh*t.
(4) I hold the cluster in place for some if they're inclined to lift the leg and move it out of the way so she can't get it. Some stop lifting if they can't get at it.
The variation in how much milk they give is huge, everything from 5-6 litres up to 15-16 litres. There's a few British FR ones who are giving as much as any of the Hol ones. When I figure out what month it is, I'll have to take an early note of their tags and bloodlines.
Thanks again folks for the ideas and general good vibes. I hope ye're all getting on well with calving and training heifers yourselves.
And u c some lads say heifers never kick the biggest issue is too much room.Straight feed trough means heifers can be tightened by adding xtra.I suggested to him when he bought individual but he didnt listen.
Nothing like I told you so,,, we will all listen to you in future.
I see Hennessey's auctions Portlaoise have a 2017 milking parlour, Cotswold heater, Dairymaster milk tank for auction on a timed auction from up Ballybay, Monaghan.
a heifer being awkward for a few days after calving would definitely not put me off breeding from her. I couldn’t tell you which of last years heifers were difficult. It’s par for the course imo
1234
that’s exactly how I do it. On my own here too for milking. Patience is key
Other thing is if you stop the bitch at the gate and someone stand in front of her and other person put cluster on her have rest of row in behind her
Can breed it out though. A farmer put in rubber matting where the cows stand in the parlour because the stock were breaking the cluster bowls kicking on the concrete. Now that's too extreme. Same genetics went to a different farm and the kicking came through. Some huge progress made in breeding it out in the last 20 years in various herdbooks. And then there's individual farmers and herds where no dam is given. And then kick bars and ropes and smashed cluster bowls are seen as normal not just in heifers. But if it's got right the heifers won't kick.
Just a thought here. Run a rotary in the place I work and we calve down anywhere from 70 to 80 heifers a yr and never have any trouble with heifers kicking. I reckon it must be the motion of the rotary that distracts them and that they each have their own stall. Baffles me every spring how little hardship they are (thankfully).
The pets are the worst, the lunatics freeze when u put it on
and we are the same… have a rotary 10 years now and i could count on one hand the number of heifers that have given us bother over those 10 years…
dont know why but i do think the movement of the table has something to do with it…
Do ye like the rotary
..TB probs
Only job for big numbers imo. One person can milk alot of cows per hr with little stress. Only downside would be high capital investment (especially nowadays) and probably throws off more dirty water
This is the only year you'll have it like this. Once heifers are in with cows they're much less likely to act up and settle down quicker.
Like G2M said, patience is key
+1
Back more than a decade ago, O-man was the only bull in town. His heifers were fairly lively, but he made great cows.
Ya, you can breed it out. Have 3 heifers calved here and their all a pleasure so far. There was a bull in Munster AI for years called AAC. The father used some of him here and I'm still trying to cull them out. It's the only bull I went into ICBF and hit him on temperament. It didn't do much good anyway because the EBI still said temperament was good.
I had air feeders in the parlour and some of the cows got cute that when the ate all the meal the chief or the fella milking would give them another pull of meal when they kicked off. They had them ruined! I used to put the kick bar loosely on them. They'd still be inclined to knock off the cluster.
I'd see ifarmwefarm putting meal in all the troughs before letting cows into the row. I do wonder how they walk up to the top of the row past the meal. I know mine wouldn't move past meal in a trough
Calmness. Just be calm. Be over generous with nuts. Press the nuts, put the cluster on straight away. If there is a bit of kicking, rub the cow intensely. Then more nuts. Usually works. If it doesn’t, repeat in the evening. Don’t stress. Never heard of a clamp, I may have to use a kick bar as a last resort sometimes.
Dont ever give them nuts when they kick it off, terrible habit
