Vol. 17, No. 4 December 2007
EDITORIAL
DAIRY COW COLLEGE 2008
CALVES
New Arrivals Need Rest, Food and Water First
Nothing Like a Chubby Baby
MILK QUALITY
Bedding Type Influences
Ammonia Losses
Milk Quality: The Mindset Issue
HERD HEALTH
To Pump or Not to Pump
REPRODUCTION
`Lethal Gene' May
Explain Drop in Pregnancy Rates
FORAGES
Weather Biggest Factor
Affecting Forages
EMPLOYEES
Why Employees Leave
Where to Find Workers
You'll Never Find What
You're Not Looking For
Interviewing is Not an Exact
Science
Place People in
Positions Where They Can Perform
A Dairy Farmer's
Responsibilities to His Business
MANAGEMENT
Put It in Writing
New Animal-handling Guidelines
CD for Farmers With Disabilities
Parlor Summary Data Valuable Diagnostic Tool
MISCELLANEOUS
DAIReXNET Web Resource Online
CWT: Why Did You Sell Your Cows?
Notable Quotes
Quotable Notes
During this busy holiday season, be reminded that often in life you have only three things you need to know:
• Three things in life that, once gone, never come back: time, words and opportunity
• Three things in life that may never be lost: peace, hope and honesty
• Three things in life that are most valuable: love, self-confidence and friends
• Three things in life that are never certain: dreams, success and fortune
• Three things that make a person: hard work, sincerity and commitment
• Three things in life that can destroy a person: substance abuse, pride and anger
J.W. Schroeder
Extension Dairy Specialist
The 2008 Dairy Cow College educational series is set for the week of Jan. 28 through Feb. 1. The sites are:
• Monday, Jan. 28 Linton Courthouse Auditorium
• Tuesday, Jan. 29 New Salem Fairgrounds Youth Building
• Wednesday, Jan. 30 Dickinson Elks Lodge
• Thursday, Jan. 31 Minot Sleep Inn
• Friday, Feb. 1 Jamestown Gladstone Inn
Presentations on topics related to waste management include dairy manure digesters and carbon sequestration by Ron Wiederholt, nutrient management specialist, and Teresa Dvorak, area Extension specialist/livestock nutrient management. On marketing cows, a producer panel will discuss experiences with cull cows. Other speakers are Lisa Pederson, beef quality assurance director, and county Extension agents Rick Schmidt and Douglas Bickler. I will cover feeding strategies for high feed costs and feed efficiency.
The program also will include a special presentation from your district director of the Milk Producers Association of North Dakota Inc. encouraging you to join. The dairy industry in North Dakota needs your voice if we are to make a difference. Of course, your Midwest Dairy Association producer services coordinator will provide an update on your check-off funds and sponsor the meal. Watch for more details in your mail.
When calves arrive at this heifer-raising facility in
northern Colorado, they already may have traveled
12 to 16 hours. Instead of being processed
immediately, these heifers are unloaded into a well-bedded
quarantine pen and given 48 hours to eat and rest. "We do a
visual inspection right away to look for any animal that
may need attention," explains Greg Goodell, veterinarian
and partner in The Heifer Authority. "We take this
step so as not to add any more stress on the animals.
They have already traveled a long way, and the
added stress of being processed upon arrival could be that
extra straw that causes them to break with disease."
Just like any mammalian infant, calves suffering from malnutrition are more susceptible to infectious diseases. The most common culprits are diarrhea and pneumonia.
Studies of the metabolic requirements for maintenance and growth of dairy calves show they are, by a large margin, typically underfed. Feeding 1 pound of 22:20 milk replacer powder per calf per day supports maintenance and about a half pound of daily gain in an 80-pound calf under ideal weather and housing conditions.
Let's look at how "Mother Nature" provides for the changing nutritional needs of calves.
First, wild bovines calve in early spring. Extreme
cold temperatures certainly can occur in spring, but they
tend to not outlast the calf's supply of warming
brown-fat metabolism. And the early colostrum-rich milk
supply not only contains essential immune-enhancing
properties, but also has a very high fat and vitamin content
that tapers off as the calf matures. This allows calves to
grow and even increase subcutaneous fat reserves
when the weather allows. Volume of the dam's milk supply increases as calf size increases, and finally milk
supply wanes as the calf provides for itself by grazing.
Now, contrast this system with domestic dairy calves that are removed from the dam and limit-fed milk.
Without adequate subcutaneous fat, perhaps a wet winter hair coat and inadequate bedding to snuggle down into for warmth, these calves need even more energy to stay warm before any energy is available for growth. Unless you increase the amount fed during times of environmental stress, the result is an increased number of sick and sometimes dead calves. Add in the fact that many on-farm feeding programs underfeed calves by a large margin, you easily can see why morbidity and mortality rates can increase dramatically during the winter months.
Mimicking what we see in nature can provide for
more optimal calf health year-round. As consultants and
dairy farmers, we recommend feeding a minimum of
1.25 pounds of 22:20 all-milk milk-replacer powder
mixed with 1 gallon of water per calf per day. Many
producers, including our farm, feed whole milk from the tank
of pasteurized waste milk. This is fed at the rate of 1
gallon per head per day at a minimum in warm weather,
and increased in colder weather.
Ideally, colostrum from the second milking through the third day in milk and any inferior-density colostrum (tested with a colostrometer) is fed to calves during the first week of life. This supplies local gut immunity and increased nutrient-density intake during the critical period for scours risk.
The best calves I've ever seen then are fed the same volume of milk, but with increasing amounts of warm water added to increase total fluid intake. This increased fluid intake encourages starter intake. This may sound complicated, but certainly can be achieved in large operations by making changes for one group each week.
Take some time to really look at your calves today. Do they look like healthy, chubby babies? Or do they look like skinny, sick babies? If it is the latter, talk to your veterinarian or nutritionist about increasing the amount of milk or milk replacer you feed to optimize health within our modern production systems.
Adapted from Dairy Herd Management. Meg Cattell is a consulting veterinarian and organic dairy producer in Windsor, Colo.
Dairy operations are a major source of ammonia emissions. Studies have shown that bedding material can influence the magnitude of ammonia emissions.
In a laboratory setting, researchers at the U.S.
Dairy Forage Research Center in Madison, Wis., analyzed
the characteristics of six bedding materials - chopped
wheat straw, sand, pine shavings, chopped newspaper,
chopped corn stalks and recycled manure solids - and their
effect on ammonia emissions from dairy cattle urine.
Here are some of the results, as reported in volume
88, number 12, of the Journal of Dairy Science:
• Recycled manure solids were the most absorbent bedding material. Sand was the least absorbent.
• When urine was applied to dry bedding, ammonia emissions during a 48-hour period were lowest for sand, followed by pine shavings.
• Ammonia emissions increased linearly with absorbance capacity and decreased as the density of the bedding materials increased.
A high somatic cell count (SCC) is not a scientific problem; it fundamentally is an attitude problem. Too many feel that a SCC of 200,000 or less is impossible, impractical or unnecessary. Considering all that is known today about controlling mastitis and reducing SCC, my opinion is that any herd average SCC of more than 200,000 is mediocre performance. A few dairy producers still feel that selling milk regardless of its quality is a right and not a privilege.
In Minnesota, an estimated 10 percent of dairy herds produce greater than 600,000 SCC milk. These herds represent 7.6 percent of the state's total cows, 5.9 percent of the state's milk produced and 15 percent of the state's total SCC. Without including the milk from these herds, Minnesota's average SCC would be near 250,000. Progress has been made, but with 31 percent of Minnesota herds still above 400,000, we have a lot of work to do.
What we need is to start a milk quality epidemic. Slow, incremental improvement through the dedicated effort of a new producers and the normal attrition of high-SCC herds will not suffice. Malcolm Gladwell's brilliant, groundbreaking, best-selling book, "The Tipping Point," is a must-read for any of us serious about milk quality improvement campaigns. His hypothesis is that major change in society often happens suddenly and unexpectedly. Ideas, behaviors, messages and products spread much like infectious disease and that, under the "right" circumstances, can reach the tipping point where spread becomes exponential, resulting in epidemiclike change.
He calls the three "agents" needed for this kind of change: 1) the Law of a Few, 2) the Stickiness Factor and 3) the Power of Context. Although we certainly have not yet succeeded in starting a milk quality epidemic in Minnesota, the ideas expressed in this book were utilized in the Quality Count$ campaign and would be very helpful for anyone contemplating a SCC-reducing campaign.
Source: 2007 NMC annual meeting proceedings, pg. 136-141 (Reneau).
Many diseases affect cows on dairy farms today. These diseases include milk fever, retained placenta, metritis, ketosis, mastitis, lameness, rumen indigestion and displaced abomasums. These diverse diseases have one thing in common - they often cause cows to have significantly reduced feed intakes. As in humans, nutrient intake in cattle is key in helping the cows overcome the disease. Both veterinarians and farmers have become very good at primary treatment of these diseases. Getting the cow started back on feed will help ensure a better recovery rate.
In the past, these cows often received "pink pills," which contain magnesium hydroxide, a powerful alkalizing agent. Years ago, when most cows were slug-fed grain in the parlor and received limited forage on the bunk, many may have suffered from gain overload, leading to the severe acidosis these pills are designed to treat.
In today's herds, while subclinical rumen acidosis can be a big problem, seeing cases of severe acidosis is unusual. In fact, the rumen of cows that have been off feed for more than 24 hours usually is very alkaline. The normal bacterial flora of the rumen can survive and thrive around pH 7. If the pH becomes too high, many more bacteria will die off, leading to cows that are more difficult to get started back on feed.
People often overlook other things that can be done
to increase the success rate in treating these
diseases. Fluid therapy is one of the most beneficial things that
can be done for cows that are off feed. Fluid
therapy provides the nutrient for which cattle have the
highest requirement: water. Several of the diseases
mentioned above cause dehydration both from reduced intake
and diarrhea. An adult dairy cow easily can tolerate
10 gallons of water being administered into the rumen.
At least 5 gallons need to be administered if a
significant difference is going to be made for the cow. High
volumes of fluids can be administered by the Cattle Pump
System (Magrath Co.), the AAS drench system (Advanced
Agri Systems) or a homemade gravity flow system.
Each of these systems allows one person to
administer large volumes of fluids quickly.
Fluid therapy also provides a convenient method for administering other nutrients to the cow. These nutrients fall into four categories: minerals, nutritional support for the cows, nutritional support for the rumen bugs and rumen microbes. Many commercial products are available that can be added to the water. These products vary greatly in content and expense. Table 1 contains guidelines for evaluating these products.
Calcium probably is the most important thing you can add. Cows need 60 to 100 grams of calcium. Salt should be added at a rate of 120 to 160 grams and potassium chloride at a rate of 90 grams. A glucose precursor is important for preventing or treating ketosis. Sixteen ounces of propylene glycol, or 12 ounces of propionate, once a day is sufficient. You can add Megalac to provide additional energy for the cow. Ground alfalfa meal is a good source of nutrients for the rumen bugs. You can add 3 to 5 pounds to the mix. Lactobacillus and yeast fermentation products are the most common microbe products that are commercially available.
Numerous commercial drenches are on the market. Some of these drenches are very good and contain most everything you could want in a drench. Others do not contain enough calcium and other ingredients to be as beneficial as the more complete drenches.
Source: John Currin, Extension dairy veterinarian, Virginia Tech
Table 1. Nutrient requirements for an adequate dairy cow drench.
| Amount | Product | Ingredients |
| 0.5 pound | Nutra-Cal | Calcium and propionate |
| 1 pound | Fresh Cow YMCP | Calcium, propionate, lactobacillus |
| 90 grams | 40-pound bag KCL | Potassium chloride (KCl) |
| 160 grams | 50-pound bag of white salt | White salt (NaCl) |
| 0.5 pound | Diamond V yeast | Yeast |
| 3 pounds | 50-pound bag alfalfa meal | Ground alfalfa |
Table 2. A homemade recipe for making your own drench.
| Rank | Ingredient | Amount |
| 1 | Calcium | 60 to 100 grams |
| 2 | Propylene glycol or propionate | 16 ounces |
| 3 | Potassium chloride (KCl) | 90 grams |
| 4 | Alfalfa meal | 3 to 5 pounds |
| 5 | Salt (NaCl) | 120 to 160 grams |
| 6 | Lactobacillus | Colony-forming units (variable) |
| 7 | Yeast | 0.25 to 0.5 pound |
| 8 | Meglac | 0.5 to 1 pound |
The discovery of a lethal gene may explain why
pregnancy rates in Holstein dairy cattle have dropped 20 percent in 20 years. A
University of
Wisconsin-Madison researcher has found a gene
that causes embryonic death in cattle around the
fifth day of pregnancy. The gene is lethal only when
it's homozygous, which means both parents
contributed the gene's lethal variant.
Since the homozygous condition only occurs if both parents carry the gene (in that case, the odds of a homozygous embryo are 25 percent), the solution is to avoid breeding heterozygous cows to heterozygous bulls using a simple DNA test.
The gene's high frequency may be attributed to the narrow genetic base of cow families. Since the embryonic loss occurs so early during pregnancy, you never really would detect a pregnancy, so that cow would appear to have a longer number of days open. It also would decrease the estimated relative conception rate for bulls that were mated to that cow.
Cattle breeders don't want to eliminate the gene, however. It also increases milk production, and fat and protein content in milk.
By now, forages have been "put to bed" for 2007 and producers are hoping their forages will have a long winter nap. Energy production and storage for winter are finished and you don't have much you can do now to harm or improve the condition of your forage. Weather will play the largest role in determining how healthy your forage stands will look next spring. The best-case scenario would be to have unsaturated soils with 6 inches of snow cover from mid-December until March. Lack of snow cover, wet soil conditions and prolonged temperatures at or below zero could spell disaster for "sleeping" forages.
Due to some plant chemistry and metabolism, the buds on the crown (the base of the plant) can withstand temperatures of about 5 degrees before they begin to freeze to death. Snow cover and dry soils help insulate buds so that even air temperatures below minus 10 won't cause buds to freeze.
Saturated soils not only transmit cold temperatures to the buds more quickly; they also are more prone to ice sheeting. A frozen layer of ice over a forage stand will restrict oxygen from reaching plant roots and suffocate the plant. Wet solids also are much more prone to frost heaving (repeated freezing and thawing of the soil, which pushes the crown above the soil surface and eventually snaps the roots) than dry soils.
With the forages "in bed" for the winter, now is the time to focus on other aspects of your farm. However, don't forget to conduct a thorough maintenance inspection of your forage harvesting equipment before spring because, once the forages "wake up" next spring, you'll be too busy.
Source: Penn State Field Crop News
Why do good people quit? It's not always for more money or better benefits. Attendees at a manager's academy coordinated by the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin cited the following reasons for employee turnover on their dairy operations:
• Better opportunity
• Better lifestyle
• Right person, wrong time
• Family problems
• Unable to join the business
• Generational differences
Whenever farm owners and managers get together, the conversation often runs to the topic of recruiting and hiring of employees. Managers report a variety of ways they recruit, hire and place new workers.
• Advertising and word of mouth: Most managers report advertising as their least preferred method of locating new employees.
• Recommendations from current employees: Most farm managers report their best source of new workers is recommendations from current employees.
• Rerecruit your best performers: One of the most important factors to remember when recruiting workers is to make sure you hold onto the good people you already have.
Mark Mayo of Mayo's Dairy in LeGrande, Calif., said in a recent interview, "When it comes to identifying quality people who work on our farm, I hire people based on what I call `the three C's.' These include character, competence and chemistry."
• Character - If you are a person of character, you'll act the same whether you're at work, at home or out in the community. I give character a weight of 80 percent because character is very difficult to teach.
• Competence - Of course, you look for the best person to do the job.
• Chemistry - However, you can have a sharp individual with a lot of knowledge and a good work ethic who is honest and straightforward. But if he`s a troublemaker and either can't or is unwilling to work with others on the team, he can stir up all of the other people.
Even when you have a good idea of the qualities you're looking for, to determine which job candidates actually possess the desired characteristics always is a challenge. You need to ask the right questions and have your "detector" on to pick up when people might be telling you what they think you want to hear. Getting to know a person just takes time. If you spend enough time with the person, you will know if he or she is the right fit.
Many supervisors assume once they have located
and hired people with the "right" characteristics, their job
is done. Increasingly, managers have learned they need
to monitor progress of the new employees carefully
to make sure they are placed in jobs where they can do
their best work.
One of the advantages of being a larger dairy is you can allow people to work in an area of their interest. You have to place people in positions that match their personalities and where they can perform their best work.
Adapted from Progressive Dairyman, August 2007
Who is the most valuable person on your dairy farm? Herdsman? Milker? Many owners forget that they are the most important person on their farm. Why do dairy farmers immediately call their veterinarian when an animal is sick? Yet many dairymen postpone visiting the family doctor when they are sick because "they are too busy and it will get better in a couple of days."
How many times do delays in visiting the family doctor result in the owner visiting the local hospital emergency room and spending several days in the hospital? How many dairy farmers have an annual checkup with the family doctor? How many illnesses (e.g., diabetes, hypertension and skin cancer) can be detected at the annual checkup? Many of these health problems can be treated and monitored by the family physician before they grow into major problems. If the owner cannot manage his business when he is ill, who will manage it for him? The dairyman's health and well-being is the most important asset on his/her farm.
Many dairy farmers believe "they can do a better job than the hired help." Many dairy farmers take the attitude that if they work "longer and harder," they can increase the farm's profits. In times of tight cash flow, many dairy farmers try to reduce labor costs as a means of reducing expenses. What are the costs of working longer hours? How many dairy farmers routinely attend their children's school events, consistently spend time with the family and annually schedule a family vacation? Who comes first: the cows or the family?
Dairy farmers need to get away from the business to recharge and rejuvenate. Finally, dairy farmers need adequate rest to work safely. How many farm accidents could have been prevented because the owner was "overly tired" and did not pay close attention to the task at hand?
Owners need time to manage their businesses. This management time is especially difficult because many dairy producers have maximized labor efficiency on their farms years ago. Producers and employees are working at maximum capacity. Where does the dairy farmer find the time to manage the business when the owner and employees have little free time left after completing the dairy tasks?
A dairy farmer wears two hats in his business: owner/manager and laborer. Time spent managing the business may be the most profitable time a producer spends on his/her farm. The dairy farmer needs to ask himself/herself an important question: What management decisions improved the farm's bottom line when I spend the time analyzing my records and make decisions based on facts rather than my "gut feelings"?
Producers need time to analyze financial, Dairy Herd Improvement Association, herd health and cropping records. What are the farm's profit centers? Is dairy the primary enterprise or does the farm have alternative enterprises: dairy steers, beef cattle or crops? What are the three- and five-year profitability trends for the farm's enterprises? What are the strengths, weaknesses and areas of improvement on the farm? Can the land, labor and capital devoted to an enterprise generate higher returns elsewhere in the business?
Dairy farming is a dynamic business. If the dairy
farmer does not take time to monitor trends on
his/her farm, who will manage his/her business?
The old adage "on the plains of hesitation bleach
the bones of countless millions" reflects the
management style of many producers.
When producers elect not to make decisions regarding the management of the farms, they are making a decision to maintain the status quo on their farms. If producers do not spend time managing their businesses and developing strategies to maximize profits on their farms in a rapidly changing business environment, their businesses may not survive in the long run.
Source: Peter Callan, Extension agent, Virginia State University
Make sure your treatment protocols are written down. Your treatment plan contains a lot of information: definitions for diagnosis and instructions for care, as well as specific drug protocols. Having everything written down gives you a basis for evaluating the effectiveness of those protocols and, quite frankly, it's something that both regulatory personnel and consumers expect you to do.
The 2007 animal handling guidelines and audit
guide from the American Meat Institute is available.
The guidelines, written by Temple Grandin,
animal-welfare specialist at Colorado State University,
are an updated version of the 2005 guidelines and
have been revised based upon feedback from the
field. To download the free materials, go to
www.animalhandling.org/ht/d/sp/i/1752/pid/1752
.
The "Toolbox CD," the fifth edition of an assistive-technology resource for farmers and ranchers with disabilities, is available from Purdue University's Breaking New Ground Resource Center. To get a copy, call (800) 825-4264. The cost is $25 for the CD or $80 for a print version, which also includes the CD. For more information, go to www.bngtoolbox.info .
Parlors equipped with milk meters linked to herd management software offer dairy managers the ability to monitor parlor performance. Evaluation often is required in specific subgroups of the herd to define accurately the problem areas in need of improvement. Evaluation of the following parameters can assist in identifying potential performance issues:
• Average milk per cow
• Average unit on-time (duration)
• Average overall flow rate
• Average peak flow rate
• Estimated duration of peak flow
• Average flow immediately post-attachment
- 15 seconds
-15 to 30 seconds
- 30 to 60 seconds
• Time spent in low (less than 2.2 pounds) flow or percent of total in low flow
• Time spent in high (greater than 2.2 pounds) flow or percent of total in high flow
• Pounds milk within first/second minute and percent of total milk
• Percent of time units were attached
• Start/stop times of day and length of time to complete the milking
• Count of reattachments
Source: 2007 NMC annual meeting proceedings, pg. 12-17 (Reid and Stewart).
DAIReXNET, the national, eXtension Web site on information related to dairy cattle, was launched at the 2007 World Dairy Expo. DAIReXNET is designed to meet the educational and decision-making needs of dairy producers, allied industry partners, Extension educators and consumers. You can visit this Web site at www.extension.org/dairy_cattle .
DAIReXnet offers the following resources:
• Answers to "Frequently Asked Questions"
• Access to top experts in the field of dairy production. If an answer to a frequently asked question is not available, then the question is directed to "ask the expert," where dairy professionals provide the requested information.
• Resources of science-based, peer-reviewed articles on more than a dozen critical dairy-related topics
• Newsletters, including state and regional dairy newsletters, which can be searched or received via an RSS feed
• News, including latest news releases and highlights from across the country
• Events upcoming at local, state, regional and national levels
A survey of the 333 U.S. dairy producers who participated in this year's Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) herd retirement program revealed that high production costs were the No. 1 reason they chose to disperse their herds.
Three-fourths of the survey respondents were more than 50 years old. They were asked to identify one or more reasons why they chose to sell their dairy herds. Their responses:
• Increased production costs: 59 percent
• No one to pass the dairy on to: 40 percent
• Pursue other types of farming: 37 percent
• Wanted to retire: 26 percent
• Family health issues: 25 percent
• Financial difficulties: 20 percent
• Environmental pressures: 15 percent
• Pursue nonfarm employment: 12 percent
• Opportunity to start with a new herd: 8 percent
• Opportunity to sell farm: 7 percent
• Wanted to relocate dairy: 1 percent
• Other nondescript reasons: 4 percent
Source: National Milk Producers Federation
According to the World Health Organization, the percentage of the population suffering from foodborne illnesses each year in industrialized countries has been reported to be up to 30 percent. In the U.S., about 76 million cases of foodborne illness, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths, are estimated to occur each year. While most foodborne illnesses are sporadic and often not reported, foodborne illness outbreaks may take on massive proportions. For example, in 1994, an outbreak of salmonellosis from contaminated ice cream occurred in the U.S., affecting an estimated 224,000 people. In 1988, an outbreak of hepatitis A, resulting from the consumption of contaminated clams, affected some 300,000 individuals in China.
"The rule to be observed in this stable at all times, toward the cattle, young and old, is that of patience and kindness. A man's usefulness in a herd ceases at once when he loses his temper and bestows rough usage. Men must be patient. Cattle are not reasoning beings. Remember that this is the Home of Mothers. Treat each cow as a mother should be treated. The giving of milk is a function of motherhood; rough treatment lessens the flow. That injures me as well as the cow. Always keep these ideas in mind in dealing with my cattle."
- W.D. Hoard, circa 1901