A new health plan has enabled a three-times daily milking herd to improve conception rates, reduce antibiotic usage and maintain a 12,000litre herd average at Heaton Hall, Morecombe.
Wannops Farm which is a family business comprising 1000acres, is home to a 600 milking Holstein cows that are housed all year round, alongside 400 plus youngstock.
"We understand that our cows are being pushed, so monitoring and measuring health is really important to us," said David Wannop, adding that the family moved to three times a day milking in 2017 and saw an immediate increase in yield.
To feed the cattle 365 days a year, four cuts of silage are harvested – 500 acres of first cut grass, 450 acres second cut, 400 acres for third and, finally, 300 acres in a fourth cut. In addition, 70 acres of maize and 150 acres of wholecrop are grown.
“Being efficient with home-grown forage and labour is important as it cuts our bought in feed costs and means we are less exposed to price volatility. In addition to home-grown forage, we feed a blend which is added to the silage and a small amount of cake in the parlour,” David added.
A new herd health programme has also made a huge difference to animal productivity and management. The programme, which was put in place by Animal Health Vision (AHV) International, comprises an udder health plan which looks at preventing the build-up of bacteria in the udder, thereby reducing the need for antibiotic use substantially. It starts with a mineral-based booster tablet at pre-calving and concludes with an extra tablet and Aspi tablet pre-drying off with additional support for the cow at one-week post-calving.
Such has been the success of the new health regime that the family suggested to AHV about staging a farm open day, which attracted almost 100 farmers including several from Scotland.
“You can’t argue with the performance improvements shown by the data and the cows look really well; we wanted to let other farmers see the impact on our herd,” David said.
Such products uses quorum sensing technology to disrupt communication between, and behaviour of, bacteria which cause challenges for farmed livestock. The technology allows the balance between bacteria and animal to be turned in favour of the animal, as well as equipping animals to better defend themselves in the future.
“We started with the udder programme around 18 months ago and were especially interested to see how it stops infection before it can take hold,” Mr Wannop explains. “Mastitis rates were never really a problem, cell counts were low and we were pretty happy.
“However, since starting the programme, cell counts have fallen by 63% to 61,000 cells/ml and the trend is of significantly lower cell counts when comparing data over the last four years,” he adds.
• Cell counts have fallen from 164,000 cells/ml in August 2022 to 61,000 cells/ml in February 2023, a 63% decrease.
• From September 2022 to May 2023 the herd has remained at a lower cell count. An unsettled period from March to May 2023 was the result of an outbreak of environmental mastitis.
“Given what we already know about antimicrobial resistance and its very real threat to human health, it’s very positive that adopting the AHV programme normally translates to significant reduction in antibiotics used,” AHV’s veterinary technical adviser Jan van Dijk explains. “Our preventative approach finally disrupts the long-held view that antibiotics provide the answer.”
Antibiotic use for udder health at Heaton Hall Farm has been significantly reduced. Within 10 months of starting the programme, it fell from 6.34 mg/PCU (population correction unit, a standard measurement for antibiotic use) to 2.07 mg/PCU. The farm was already well below the RUMA (Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance) target of 21mg/PCU for dairy cows, and adopting this new approach has enabled them to reduce antibiotic use even further.
“Fertility-related issues are usually the second most costly issue for dairy herds and the family now makes use of the products in the AHV fertility programme as well. It is interesting to note that, even while the cows were on the udder health programme alone, the conception rate rapidly increased by 6%; in other words, it appears that when cows don’t have to work as hard on fighting bacteria in the udder, they perform better in other crucial areas too” adds Dr van Dijk.
“We haven’t had any major issues as far as fertility goes, but wanted to make sure we were optimising the herd’s performance,” says David. “And it’s important to remember that it’s a multi-factorial approach, not one quick fix”
The family put up a new shed for 300 milking cows and 50 dry cows which gave more space, light and air.
Once calved, cows move into big, roomy cubicles with mattresses and sawdust and plenty of available water, to help ensure they remain as healthy as possible. Calves remain at the home farm where they are bucket fed until around eight weeks of age and then, when fully weaned and eating a good level of hard feed and forage, they move to the family’s other farm to be reared on, usually at around 12 weeks.
Since using AHV’s fertility programme, there has been a considerable improvement in fertility key performance indicators:
• Average days open – down from 108 days to 100
• Conception rate to first insemination up from 35% to 42%
• Conception rate to second insemination up from 39% to 43%
• Cases of metritis – Sept 2021 – June 2022, 17 cases compared to Sept 2022 – June 2023, 5 cases
“For a herd being pushed for yield, fertility performance was always good and, since the fertility programme was started in June 2022, it has improved further. The figures show that 26 cows have been saved from being added to the cull list, thereby reducing the number of replacements needed. This can have a significant impact on the carbon footprint of the farm, which is great news for everyone involved at Heaton Hall Farm,” Dr van Dijk comments.
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