Dairy April 2015 teatseal dry cow Condition scoring Photos by Richard Hilson www.vshb.co.nz
Autumn Testing for Trace Elements Camille Flack Trace elements are a small and yet extremely important part of dairy cow nutrition. Inadequate intake of any of the essential trace elements can result in reduced milk production, more disease (specific diseases and poorer immunity) and decreased reproductive performance. Important trace elements in pasture systems are mainly Copper (Cu) and Selenium (Se). Other trace elements to consider are cobalt/b12, iodine and zinc. It is always important to know your trace element levels before you consider supplementation. Two tests per year is usually sufficient to determine the trace element status of your herd. This is best in spring (pre-mating) and autumn (pre-dry off). The idea of testing in autumn ensures your dairy herd are set up through pregnancy and winter and are ready for the next calving. Copper: Cows have their greatest need for copper in late pregnancy which coincides with winter when pasture copper levels are at their lowest. Low copper affects fertility, immunity and red blood cells leading to reduced cow performance. In young stock it leads to decreased growth rates and often a rough and low pigmented coat. Copper can be low due to low levels in the diet or other minerals affecting copper uptake. Common minerals that reduce absorption are Molybdenum and Zinc (given at facial eczema protection dose rates). Copper is stored in the liver and then released into the blood stream as it is needed. For this reason liver is the best sample to check your animal s reserves of copper. Biopsies can be done on farm from a sample of approximately 5 cows or alternatively samples can be taken at the works from cull cows (not as ideal). Selenium: Selenium is needed for normal growth, fertility and health. Large areas of New Zealand soil are deficient which means cereal grains grown here are also low. Clinical signs commonly seen are reduced growth rates, reduced milk production, reduced fertility (metritis, cystic ovaries and retained foetal membranes) and subclinical mastitis. Testing can be done with blood samples and are often quite similar amongst the herd. Cobalt: Cattle are not able to absorb vitamin B12 from the diet efficiently; instead Cobalt is required in the diet and the rumen microbes synthesize this to make Vitamin B12. Vitamin B 12 is needed for essential enzyme function and can only be stored in the liver temporarily. Young stock are most commonly affected with deficient animals showing anorexia, ill thrift and rough coats. Testing can be done with blood or liver tests. It is mainly a problem in areas that have low cobalt or high manganese levels in their soil. Give us a call in the clinic to set up a visit for bloods and/or liver biopsies to be done on farm before dry off. Alternatively if you have some cull cows going to the works optigrow forms can be organised with your vet to get liver copper tests carried out. Teatseal the benefits Picture this: It s springtime, cows are calving, frosty early morning starts, the cowshed is running. Milkers are through the shed, colostrums come in, uh-oh, there s another cow with mastitis. Oh and this freshly calved heifer has it too. That s going to knock her production this season! Seems like an endless chore this mastitis business... Luckily we can help. Internal teat sealants such as Teatseal sit in the teat canal and act as a plug to prevent new infections during the dry period. Heifers are prone to picking up infections pre-calving as they start to bag up. Using teat sealants 4-12 weeks pre-calving can reduce heifer calving mastitis by up to 68%, reducing your stress during spring and allowing those heifers to have a clean, mastitis free season. And it s not as hard as you may think to get it into them. We now have a trailer available that we can take to your run-off or grazing property, which fits 4-6 heifers at a time (depending on size) to allow safe and efficient handling and teatsealing. The trailer even comes complete with a team of trained teatsealers! Adult cows will also benefit from teat sealants. Even the longest acting dry cow antibiotics will not cover every cow for her entire dry period. Cows dried off early or later calving cows will have no preventative cover for a significant length of time before Kathryn Sigvertsen calving the time when they are very prone to picking up new infections. Teat sealants can be used in combination with dry cow in those cows that need treatment (for high SCC or clinical mastitis during the season) and can be used alone in cows with low (less than 150,000) SCC on at least 3 herd tests. Reducing spring mastitis in cows and heifers not only has direct economic benefits from cost of treatment, and loss of milk during treatment, but the flow-on effects of having had mastitis early in the season can be significant in heifers. The risk of having antibiotics in the vat, stress of high bulk SCC and strain on staff also add to the picture. For more information on dry cow treatments and teat sealants we are running a discussion/workshop on farm (Norsewood), on Wednesday 22 nd April from 11am-12.30pm at David Rolston s property in Norsewood. Topics covered will include teatsealing (including a trailer demonstration), cost/benefit of dry cow therapy, and the future of milk quality consults. To register please phone the Waipukurau Clinic on 06 858 9060 or the Dannevirke Clinic on 06 374 7021 - it is free to attend!
STAFF TRAINING The winter period offers an excellent opportunity to look forward to the forthcoming Spring and make plans for all the metabolic and calving complications that are an almost inevitable part of those hectic couple of months. At Vet Services we have organised some extremely successful sessions over the past few years in which we aim to equip staff with the essential skills to navigate their way around the many complications that can present themselves at calving time. How do you differentiate a milk fever case from hypomagnesaemia? What are the treatment options available for the metabolic Harry Whiteside issues likely to be seen? How do I approach a difficult calving and interpret what is going on inside the cow? What is a prolapsed uterus? When do I call the vet in? These are all questions that we can hopefully answer through our informal and user-friendly sessions. In the past we have catered for individual farms and groups of farms together, either at the clinic or on farm. Please give serious consideration to arranging one of these sessions for your staff as July will be upon us before we know it! H H H stop press H H H Congratulations to Craig and Trish Sinclair for winning the Hawke s Bay Farmers of the Year title and to Simon and Josie Beamish for winning the Farm Forester of the Year title. Dry Cow Therapy The use of Dry Cow Therapy (DCT), along with all prescription drugs, is an area that has specific requirements for authorising, dispensing and using these restricted veterinary medicines. One of the key issues driving this is the widespread use of antibiotics in agriculture and the contribution to antimicrobial resistance in humans. When dispensing DCT, according to the Veterinary Council of New Zealand Code of Professional Conduct, the vet in question should meet the requirements of a veterinary consultation which it states must include: Interviewing the client or representative Collecting and recording appropriate information including clinical findings, diagnostic tests, mastitis patterns, BMSCC, ISCC and mastitis management. Obtaining appropriate consent Being given and accepting responsibility for the ongoing health and welfare of the animals concerned Providing the appropriate level of advice and training so that the agreed course of action can occur as planned. It also states that where DCT is authorised its use must be part of a planned and ongoing mastitis control program in which the veterinarian is involved. While this represents a lot of red tape and jargon to most, it is inevitable that conditions are likely to tighten in the future. At the moment a lot of these consultations with Vet Services clients are less formal with the documentation covered by the authority consents signed at the time. It is expected that we will have to move towards more formal milk quality consultations in future to cover industry regulation. We think this represents a significant opportunity to optimise the DCT inputs on farm and maximise the return for your DCT dollar. This will be achieved by ensuring any DCT treatments used are specific to the situation on each farm and most appropriate Tim Hogan to achieve the desired outcomes relative to cow and mastitis management in that system. Where clients are signed up to Infovet the required information is relatively easy to retrieve and use. Otherwise, it needs to brought in with you and includes mastitis treatment records (or your Minda data if they have been entered!) along with BMSCC and ISCC data. If you want to book in a milk quality consultation please contact the clinic and arrange a time.
Body Condition Scoring it s an incredibly useful tool! Tim Hogan Although growing conditions have been tough, good levels of production have been sustained on most dairy farms. To date there are a lot of people on a par or ahead of last year s production which was a good season in itself. Unfortunately, there has been a cost in terms of cow condition in some cases. From now on the focus should be on making decisions based on body condition score to ensure body condition targets are met later in the season. Using age of cow, expected calving date, BCS and last herd test information to make staggered drying off decisions makes sense. After talking to some experienced farmers about BCS scoring in late lactation, they have found it one of the most useful exercises all season. It really focuses attention to detail on feed budgeting and triggering drying off decisions. We are able to come and condition score all or part herds for you, or run through a few to help calibrate your BCS technique. Performing BCS is simple, fast and effective. Contact us now to book it in. The In-calf book has some good guidelines in it in relation to triggers for drying off. According to those recommendations any August calving cow BCS 3 or less and any R3yr heifer BCS 3.5 or less should already be dry and gaining weight prior to winter. Aim for as many cows hitting a 4.5 BCS prior to winter as possible. Once winter hits it is difficult to put condition on cows. Studies have shown the maximum animals generally put on in winter is 0.5 BCS, so don t rely on a last minute flurry to get the weight on. Getting the weight on early makes wintering easier and sets up for next lactation. Don t forget to make use of autumn management tools (such as OAD milking, 16 hourly milking, preferential feeding and feed type offered) to partition more feed into body condition. Weight gain is more efficient during lactation and maintaining BCS now can allow for longer lactation if we get a good late growing season. Given the pay-out it is unrealistic to feed any extra s, especially where feed levels are tight. Make sure all culls are gone and consider reducing numbers by culling poor producers or late calvers if necessary. Don t forget the Rising two year heifers! Some of these have suffered a bit as grazing blocks have struggled in the dry. Now is the time to work on under-performing young stock, separating them out and preferentially feeding them. Watch parasite burdens as wetter conditions return. Looking ahead to winter, make sure you adjust the feed budget accordingly. Do an inventory on winter supplements to make sure supplies have not been depleted. It will also be worth reviewing crop yields as the dry conditions may mean winter crops under perform this year, will the tonnage be adequate? Check with the agronomist whether an additional autumn fertiliser application might help out here. What to look for when body condition scoring: H H H stop press H H H Congratulations to Mark and Jamie Arnold who were runners-up in the HB/ Wairararapa Dairy Industry Awards Sharemilker/Equity Farmer of the Year. Congratulations also to Ken and Steph Norman who took out the coveted Tararua Sheep & Beef Farmer Title Scanning Reminders It s never too early or too late to book your animals in for scanning! Give any of the clinics a call today to make sure you get your animals scanned this season! Deer scanning reminders will be out shortly
Seasonal Update Hastings/Napier As I write this we have just had the first of some autumn rain. It was definitely due and hopefully everything is looking green by the time you read this, especially if the budget has allowed for some autumn fertiliser! Watch out for spore counts. Check our website to keep up to date with what the levels are doing. We are seeing spikes in Waipukurau No need to repeat how tight the feed situation is for most but we re starting to see the first signs of a greening up across the district following Cyclone Pam s passage and a few misty mornings. Warm temperatures have been holding up and a little more moisture would certainly put us in a better position as winter approaches. Whilst one or two mushrooms are beginning to sprout, facial eczema spore counts remain low- keep an eye on our website for updates on counts. Cattle scanning is well underway with overall results looking better than average and cow condition holding up. The value of sire testing pre-mating has certainly been highlighted with Dannevirke Pam did not quite deliver the volume of rain required but it was a start. Things have at least greened up especially closer to the Ruahines. Good follow-up rain is needed to kick things along before the cooler temperatures arrive. This is a bit of a repeat of last autumn and comes right around key ram joining dates. Once again it has been difficult to get ewes on a rising plane for tupping although in general body condition is good. Beef cattle will have a long winter ahead on a lot of places as the bulk of feed that was present earlier has been cleaned up. Camille Flack some areas at the moment so please keep an eye on your own properties and monitor if you thing appropriate. Hopefully most of you have zinc going through the water at low levels and can increase the zinc when the need arises. For all of our dairy farmers out there, keep an eye on those SCC levels if you are looking at milking once a day (or are already!). Harry Whiteside one or two disappointing results attributable to bull failures. Hopefully as I type rams are doing/have done a good job up and down the region not forgetting stags either! Before we dust off our scanners and find out how effective these animals have been we ll be busying ourselves breaking in our new teat sealing trailer. This is a customised addition to our stable than will be available across all clinics and now allows us to offer an even more user-friendly teat sealing/dry cow therapy service to our dairy clients.see the article in this month s newsletter for more details. Tim Hogan It doesn t look like there will be a significant autumn surplus so alternative strategies may be required to winter capital stock. Body condition should be driving dry-off decisions on dairy farms as well. There are plenty of light heifers and early calving cows that need to recover weight prior to winter. Not sure whether we will be cricket world champs or runner s up when I write this but the black caps have been inspirational. Hopefully, the All Blacks can do us just as proud later in the year! Dry Cow Treatments and Teat Sealants workshop We are running a discussion/workshop on-farm, Wednesday 22nd April from 11am-12.30pm at David Rolston s property in Norsewood. Topics covered will include teatsealing (including a trailer demonstration), cost/benefit of dry cow therapy, and the future of milk quality consults. To register please phone the Waipukurau Clinic on 06 858 9060 or Dannevirke Clinic on 06 374 7021 It is free to attend!
Qualifying Purchases: 2 X Eclipse E Injection 500Ml, Eclipse Pour-On 2.5L & 5L, Eprinex 20L (2X Swanndri), Exodus Pour-On 5L, 2 X Genesis Injection B12 & Se 500Ml, 2 X Genesis Injection 500Ml, Genesis Pour-On 2.5L, 5L & 10L, Genesis Ultra Pour-On 5L, 4 X Ivomec Plus Injection 500Ml, Matrix C Hi- Mineral 10L & 20L, Switch C Hi-Mineral 20L. TRUSTED BY KIWIS FOR DECADES. PROTECT YOUR STOCK WITH THE RELIABLE PERFORMANCE OF MERIAL ANCARE PRODUCTS AND WE LL THROW IN ANOTHER TRUSTED KIWI CLASSIC, THIS TOUGH-AS-GUTS SWANNDRI FLEECE. * *OFFER APPLIES TO QUALIFYING PURCHASES. WHILE STOCKS LAST. PROMOTION RUNS 01 FEB 30 APR 2015. NAPIER 210 Taradale Road 06 843 5308 HASTINGS 801W Heretaunga Street 06 876 7001 DANNEVIRKE 193-195 High Street 06 374 7021 WAIPUKURAU 43 Takapau Road 06 858 9060 www.vshb.co.nz