Hypography Science Forums: Safeguarding Milk Part 1: Cow Health - Hypography Science Forums

Producing plentiful, safe and high quality milk starts with healthy cows, and on the farm cow health is priority one. Cows work hard to produce milk, so we have to work hard to care for them and meet their needs.

The foundation of cow health is nutrition. Most farms feed a forage based ration and use grain with minerals and vitamins added as a suppliment to meet the demands of high production. We harvest our own forage, in the case of my family's farm, mostly mixed grasses. We maintain a nutrient management plan for our fields that involves soil and manure testing so we can apply manure and fertilizer as needed. Likewise, we sample our forages and send the samples for laboratory analysis so we can determine how much supplimentation is necessary for the cow's ration.
The forage analysis informs us of fiber content and how digestable the fiber is, protien,net energy, carbohydrate and minerals.

Different farms have different methods of achieving a balanced ration for the entire herd. Some small farms feed their cows on an individual basis, while the very large farms are more likely to group thier cows according to stage of lactation, fertility status, body condition, and production level, and feed each group different total mixed rations. On my famiy's farm we feed one total mixed ration as a base and use computer grain feeders to fine tune the ration for the cows on an individual basis. The big advantage of using a computer feeder is that we can get feed reports from the computer every day and see who is eating how much of their assigned ration. If there is any cow that is off feed, we can know sooner and investigate the cause quickly.

Feeding cows in a way that meets thier needs helps prevent metabolic disorders, helps reduce stress, and strengthens the immune system, lowering the incidence of bacterial and viral infections. We vaccinate against many things, including E. Coli bacteria, but vaccines are less effective when cows are under stress according to our vetrinarian, with whom we consult on a monthly basis.

Comfort is also an important factor in maintaining cow health, and that is leading up to my next part where I intend to cover facilities, so as it is once again time for me to go check on the cows before bed, I will leave off here.