Ground conditions are good on the farm, thanks to the decent weather, with growth rates still in the 40s.
We are following our autumn rotation planner, having started closing on October 1, with a target of closing 70pc of the milking platform by November 1.
Average farm cover at 827kg/DM/ha is on the low side so we have taken action to reduce demand by increasing meal from 2kg to 3kg, as well as feeding 3 kg of either baled silage or zero grazing, and housing empty or cull cows full-time on silage.
These actions will reduce our SR to 3.6 and settle our demand below 40, which will support farm cover to stop it dropping too fast.
The milking herd got a setback in mid-September, losing milk output due to a lungworm outbreak. Currently they are producing 14.6L at 5.68 fat and 4.24 protein or 1.4 kg/MS and SCC of 109.
Last month there was a lot of coughing in the parlour and our previous milk sample had estimated we were losing 0.2kg of milk daily due to a worm burden.
We spoke to our vet and agreed to take fresh dung samples and drove to the local lab to get them tested the same day.
These came back showing lungworm larvae, and the vet’s advice was to treat immediately with a zero-withdrawal wormer.
The following day the result of our third milk test was back and it showed a worm burden that would cause an estimated milk drop of 0.91kg of milk daily.
The advice on the attached advisory sheet was to treat once it went above 0.5kg.
The coughing has settled over the last three weeks, but no doubt it has caused a milk drop, along with a lot of discomfort for the cows.
We will sit down with our vet in the next week to refresh our herd health plan, which is now quite busy in terms of vaccination dates, with a focus on not compromising any of them through incorrect timing or pairing them with other vaccinations or actions that may not be compatible.
We will also look at modernising our young stock dosing regime in terms of product rotation and sampling, plus the principle of not dosing the strongest of each group.
This should allow some exposure to worms within the group, with emphasis on the best thrivers who should be best placed to deal with the challenge — the objective being to encourage immunity or resistance.
We have our fourth and final DIY milk recording this week, which will assist us in identifying our best cows for breeding dairy replacements off next year.
It will also help us identify our lower-performing cows so that we can use terminal beef sires on them.
