He currently has 12 three-quartered cows in his herd. “I’m not a computer guy, so I spend most of my time with the cows, so I will look for swollen quarters myself.” His criteria for culling an infected cow is based on stage of lactation and production level. Verhaar’s approach to detecting mastitis is through visual evaluation. After they freshen, they go back to his dairy. When the cows are dried off, they are taken to his father’s farm for the dry period and are calved in there as well. "Now I milk 520 Jersey cows with nine Lely robots, and the last three years I’ve been averaging about a 66,000 somatic cell count, and I don’t treat any cows for mastitis.” “When I told my dad that I wanted to milk Jerseys with robots, he said, ‘Jerseys are the high-somatic-cell cows, and robots tend to increase somatic cell counts, so good luck ever producing high-quality milk.’” Verhaar continued, “It’s always fun to prove your father wrong." Verhaar moved from the Netherlands with his family and grew up working on his father’s farm. Mark Fox with Thumb Veterinary Services and Marco Verhaar, a dairy producer from Bad Axe, Michigan. Roger Thomson with Team Management Concepts, Dr.
AMERICAN DAD ROGER BEING MILKED FREE
She offered a list of considerations, including: Are our animals free of pain? Are they free of fear? Do they have sufficient, dry resting space? Do they have good quality of life? Are producers comfortable explaining to non-ag friends why we do what we do?Īfter her presentation, Ruegg moderated a panel discussion with two veterinarians and a producer – Dr. Ruegg commented, “We need to look at every management practice like you are about to eat a lamb chop.” Sharing the story of when her son first realized lamb chops came from young lambs, Ruegg said we need to keep in mind what the consumer is thinking and make sure we are confident we can defend all of our management practices to the public. Only about 40 to 50 percent of the clinical cases of mastitis will benefit from use of antibiotics. Ruegg maintains that training the workforce and having a routine milking time will yield a lower rate of clinical mastitis.Ĥ. Use antibiotics only on cows that will benefit
Most welfare issues have been the result of poorly trained workers who are insufficiently managed, don’t have appropriate tools and should never have been hired.
While it may sound simple, a vital truth is: People who work with cows should be people who like cows.
AMERICAN DAD ROGER BEING MILKED PROFESSIONAL
Bedding should be more than 75 percent dry matter, and cows should not be calving in areas where you would not feel comfortable lying down.ģ. Develop and keep a professional workforce While sand is a popular option, many dairies are moving toward manure solids to manage environmental restrictions. “Choice of bedding has an enormous influence on milk quality,” Ruegg said. This would include all cows diagnosed with mycoplasma bovis infection or with chronic staph aureus infections, cows with multiple quarters affected by mastitis, cows with more than two clinical cases in one lactation and cows that maintain high somatic cell count over two lactations.Ģ. Reduce bacterial exposure of teats of high-risk cows
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