Putting a plan into action and monitoring its progress

ONE of the demonstration farms in the XLVets Dairy Herd Health Project is Woodhouses Farm, near Carlisle – a 260-acre unit ran by brothers Trevor and John Whitfield.

They are milking 150 Holstein Friesians, averaging 9,000 litres, and rearing their own replacements. The milking ration is based on grazing, grass and maize silage and wholecrop; some cake in fed in the parlour.

Three months ago the brothers sat down with their vet – Bruce Richards of the Paragon Veterinary Group – to identity problem areas on the farm and develop a herd health plan that was SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based).

Mr Richards said four specific priorities were decided on, with targets set for 12 months time. Clear action plans have been made for each area, with progress already being made in some.

MILK FEVER

On-farm records revealed a 14 per cent prevalence of milk fever with five fatalities in the previous 12 months. The situation is now assessed each month through forage analysis and blood sampling, in order to determine fat mobilisation at calving time.

In conjunction with the farm’s nutritionist, changes have been made to the dry cow and prevalence has already been reduced to 7 per cent.

The issue will continue to be monitored for 12 months to see how changes throughout the year, such as winter housing, effect it.

LAMENESS

This was considered an issue at Woodhouses Farm as records suggested a 23 per cent prevalence (with no indication of the different types of lameness) and a vet assistant watching each cow walk out of the parlour one morning suggested 28 per cent.

A target of 10 per cent within 12 months was decided on and progress is already being made. This is mainly due to the crush being relocated nearer the parlour, making it easier to foot trim cows as soon as they are identified with a problem.

Vet and nutritionist input will also be used to look at the cubicles, diet and cow-tracks.

CELL COUNTS

This has been identified as a problem – as the SCC is over 200 and there are 85 cases of mastitis per 100 cows per year – so a consultant will be brought in to look at parlour routine.

FERTILITY/ BVD

There are concerns that an under-lying problem with BVD is having a knock-on effect on fertility. This will be identified using bulk milk and blood testing, and then a decision made on whether vaccination will have enough of an effect to make the financial outlay worthwhile.