Dairy Cows very Sensitive to Stray Electricity

Dairy Cows are 15 times more sensitive to stray voltage than humans. Stray voltage leaks into milking parlours due to faulty electric motors or poor fittings on electrical equipment either in or near Milking Parlours.

Some UK dairy farmers know they have a problem but can neither locate nor fix the stray voltage. Others are unaware they have a problem or that it could be related to stray voltage. However there is a problem of poor cow behaviour in the parlour, elevated Bulk Milk Cell Counts & excessive mastitis due to teat end damage.

What are the signs that Stray Voltage may be a problem?

Milking Cows unsettled on the milking platform, stamping & excessive manure during milking.

Rust & bubbling of the metal at the base of steel pipes in contact with concrete.

Cows unwilling to cross gaps in the yard or concrete especially where there is exposed metal eg bridge in rotary parlour.

Cows sniffing pipework

Unusual rubbing & shine on some pipework (where cows are rubbing or backing off other pipes)

Excessive teat end damage & High Bulk Milk Cell Counts

This week Pasture to Profit Discussion Groups in England had 4 valuable days with Steve Corkill from CSL Taranaki NZ. http://www.corkillsystems.co.nz/

In the UK we lack skilled people who can identify & fix stray voltage in milking parlours. Steve & Tim brought with them a sensitive meter that measured stray voltage. They checked for stray voltage in a number of milking parlours......around motors, water pipes, across gaps in concrete. They could detect electric fence units & water heaters that were leaking neutral voltage.

Stray voltage of 0.5Volt will unsettle cows. Up to 0.8 Volts will create damage to teat ends. Between 1.5 & 2.0 Volts cows will refuse go near the offending pipework where they might touch & be frightened.

Testing the Milk Pump is especially important as the milk pump is often leaking stray voltage & it is effectively in touch with the cows udder & teats. Variable speed control units for milk pumps & Vaccumn pumps dramatically reduce the risk of stray voltage. Check out Varivac on the CSL website.

Turn off electric fences & Water Heaters during milking to reduce the risk. Electric Fence units should be 30m from the parlour & properly earthed.

Steve we need people like you or trained by you to test for Stray voltage in UK parlours. More importantly we want the problem fixed.

Fantastic meetings what great information & visual demonstration! Well done.

Proud of Our Fine Young Professional Dairy Farmers

The Pasture to Profit network can WALK TALL we have many great young people who are fine examples of 'We Can Do' professionalism.

If you search Google for professionalism it's hard to find any recognition of Dairy Farmers as being professionals.

Professionalism is knowing how to do it, when to do it & doing it.

It's NOT the job you DO, it's HOW you DO the job.

I had the pleasure this week to host an enthusiastic group of pasture based dairy farmers from Brittany France. We travelled together through the South West of England going into a number of brilliant farm businesses that exuded professionalism in every sense of the word.

Can I introduce five fine young professional dairy farmers who deserve to be recognised for their 'Out of the Box thinking', skills, leadership & innovation.

Meet Mat & Jessica Boley, from Batch in Somerset, George & Emily Aldridge, Purton Gloucestershire, Jon & Rachel Rider, Horton in Wiltshire, Will Grant from Newton St Cyres in Devon and Derek & Vicki Garrett from Thornbury just north of Bristol. (photos above)

These people have clear Business Goals, are technically brilliant with outstanding pastures, impressive stockmen/women with extra ordinary dairy cows & herd fertility. They are highly profitable businesses yet their personal/family time is a high priority. They communicate clearly with conviction. They are confident yet very humble.....questioning their own successes.

The UK Dairy Industry needs heros! There is a new breed of well educated, well travelled Discussion Group members who are breaking new boundaries & taking our farming industry forward at amazing speed.

Too often in the UK we are quick to criticise. Too quick to be negative. Too slow to applaud success & too quiet about our fine young professionals.

Bloat Still a Risk on Many farms

Bloat has created stress on many UK dairy farms that are covered with thick lush clover dominant pastures this summer & continues to be a threat. Pastures high in potassium & low in Sodium are a real silent threat. The high potassium levels can come from fertilizer or slurry/muck spreading or even paddocks that have regularly been used for night grazings. High risk paddocks could be cut for silage & not grazed ....this will lower the potassium levels. However this silage should be fed to young stock not cows.

Sodium to Potassium ratios create a risky bloat scene when Sodium levels are low. These can be corrected to a certain extent by fertilizing with salt or by putting extra rock salt out for the cows or young stock. Make sure it is close to the water troughs say less than 20 meters from the water/drinking trough. This will need to be moved each grazing.

These are not guaranteed to be bloat preventative by themselves but over the long term do help. Bloat is also highly heritable....so at risk cows will breed at risk daughters. Chose NZ AI bulls that have low risk.

I have seen many clover dominant pastures that are very lush. Some of these appear to be risky yet so far have not created havoc.....yet others that appear to be low risk have caused deaths. It is very unpredictable so take all care & be prepared. This means dosing the water troughs with oil or anti foaming agents well before the problem occurs.

Mowing in front continues to help on many farms reducing the risk by drying out the clover before grazing.

Current Pasture Covers & Pasture Growth Rates

Cheshire organic 2200 kgsDM/ha & growth 40kgsDM/ha/day

Cumbria 2440 & 60

Staffordshire 2430 & 46

Dorset 2100 & 24

Somerset 2200 & 40

Devon 2284 & 32

Cornwall 2360 & 57

Pembrokeshire 2550kgsDM/ha average cover & 70kgsDM/ha/day

On Target for Autumn Grass Management?

Summer has been a NON event.

Lots of lily white legs at Discussion Groups .........................not a pretty sight!

September has brought cold wet miserable conditions especially in northern UK. Despite the lack of sunshine pasture growth over the last few months has been amazing. No summer rest for pasture may mean we don't get any autumn peak in pasture growth rates. Everyone needs to be somewhat cautious in what they expect grass growth to do over September.

The lack of sunshine has created a few problems with pasture & cow management....low magnesium levels, low fibre content & lower than normal energy (ME) levels. Not everyone has the milk or milksolids they have been hoping for lately. However the research is clear there are few benefits of trying to add fibre to a grazing cow's diet....all you do if anything is lower DM intake.

The wet summer may also increase the risk of Liver Fluke.....ask your Vet.

Bloat has been a real issue where clover content has been high. A number of products are very useful for control bloat (see website for useful info)...many farmers are mowing in front of the cows & trying to get longer grazing rotations to get some maturity into the feed.

http://www.fil.co.nz/newsite/Online/index.html

Pasture covers all summer have been very high especially autumn calvers who simply have not had the stocking rate to keep on top of fast growing pasture. Most pasture covers are still really high....on the surface this looks good as we target 2600-2700 for the first week of October. However with very wet conditions in the north its really hard to get good utilization.

I would be lengthening the grazing rotation now to build covers for October.....cooler nights, colder soil temperatures & question marks over available soil nitrogen levels. There is currently little or no difference between organic & N fed pastures in terms of growth or cover.

Farm Pasture Covers & Current measured pasture growth (1st week of Sept) :-

Dumfries....2550kgs DM/ha Average cover......50kgsDM/ha/day growth

Cumbria.....2660..............60

Cumbria.....2450..............52

North Wales..2660...........70

Staffordshire 2250...........50

Derbyshire 2552..............56

Somerset....2450..............55

Dorset.........2250..............60

Devon.........2650..............67

Gloucester..2520..............60

Joburg SAfrica....very dry, Durban....green (roving reporter Steve Brandon)

Rotorua NZ (end of 1st rotation)....2413........49kgsDM/ha/day growth (via Twitter NZCows)

Grass based Dairy Farms have a Low Carbon Footprint

What is the Carbon Footprint for Milk on your farm? Calculating your onfarm Carbon Footprint for Milk is about to become really important. In December there is a critical International meeting to be held in Copenhagen about how the world is to reduce carbon emissions. Each country (including EU 27) will make key decisions as to how (read at what cost) the carbon emissions are to be reduced. There wont be too much debate about.....do we really need to do this? http://www.actoncopenhagen.decc.gov.uk/en/

Guess what? Agriculture will be targetted as a key industry where reductions must happen. The UK government is looking for a 20% reduction in Agricultural emissions by 2020. This may require a reduction in cow numbers, reduced fertilizer N use, reduced consumption of electricity, oil & fuel, and improvements to herd fertility. Methane emissions from cows & manure waste management are of concern given methane's "Global Warming Potential". Herd fertility is seen as a means of reducing a farm's Carbon Footprint.

Dairy farmers thru out the world (not just the UK) will be held responsible for their carbon emissions......either by reducing carbon emissions or having to buy carbon credits. Carbon credits will be traded probably with a relatively low initial value say 15 Euros but after 2015 the cost of these will almost certainly increase rapidly (perhaps to 60 Euros). This will have a major effect on farm costs.

As electricity generation is a major UK source of current carbon emissions...........you can be very sure that electricity costs will rise & that dairy farmers need to reduce consumption both to control costs & to reduce the Carbon Footprint of their milk production. Every dairy farmer needs to look at ways of reducing electricity such as Heat Recovery Units or Varivac Systems

http://www.corkillsystems.co.nz/ Steve will be at the Dairy Event & available to visit Discussion Groups (talk to Tom)

There are some excellent websites on how to reduce electricity usage http://www.caenz.com/sustain/Downloads/Farmers_Report.pdf

Pasture based dairy farms have a lower Carbon Footprint for MILK. Every Discussion Group now needs to calculate the Carbon Footprint before December. Talk to Tom about this as I have set up spreadsheets for Discussion Groups to use.

On a closely related issue..........Food Security is now a Government topic.....surprise surprise!! There is very good reason for the UK government to be concerned having for decades all but destroyed UK agriculture. It's an outrageous situation in the current 'global warming & climatic uncertain future' that highly productive UK soils are either poorly utilized or even worse.....have ceased to produce food. How Government intends to change this will be very interesting indeed.

There is an excellent BBC program that is very good & well worth watching..."Future of Food" http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00m9xk9/Future_of_Food_Episode_1/

Grass based dairy farmers need to Stand up, Speak up....Grass based dairyfarms already have a low Carbon Footprint & they are less reliant on reducing world stocks of oil!

Keep Mowing Pasture In Front of the Cows...It's that kind of year

Mowing pasture in front of the cows is an excellent daily tool to keep the pasture in top quality. In most years once is enough. This year however most farms in the UK are battling surplus grass & struggling to maintain quality. The quality of pasture being grazed is a direct result of the residual left last grazing. The tighter the residual (1500kgsDM/ha) the better the subsequent quality for milking cows.

The residual must be hard grazed everytime. If that's not possible mowing in front is a good option. It leaves the pasture nice & short, reduces the bloat risk & cows adapt quickly. However it costs money to run the tractor.....so I'm hestitant to recommend a second mowing. Almost every farm I've seen this week needs to regain control so the best option after taking quick cuts of bale silage is to mow again. What's your Pasture Wedge Graph telling you?

In 1975 I invented the term "Pasture Wedge". I was trying to describe the quantity of pasture feed a dairy farm had available at any one time. I thought we needed a simple picture....a little like a silage clamp....a visual picture. I was working with several dairy farm Discussion Groups near Matamata NZ. Little did I nor the late Des Clayton, (a scientist from NZ's Ruakura Research) who I was working with at the time, realise that this concept would be used all around the world by pasture based dairy farmers are they strive for better pasture utilization.

So often it's simple concepts that stick!

I take enormous personal pride that the 'pasture wedge concept' is now a world wide concept used by thinking dairy farmers everywhere. Imagine my joy on coming to the UK 8 years ago to hear progressive farmers talk about the "Magic Spring Day" another 1975 Matamata term that has travelled the world.

The development of the Pasture Wedge Graph a simple excel spreadsheet could almost be described as a giant leap forward for dairy farmers. Now farmers can get control & keep control of their lowest cost input....pasture.

I see that the pasture wedge graph has made it to the USA too.....isnt that fantastic!. http://plantsci.missouri.edu/grazingwedge/ Talking USA here's a grazing website thats worth visiting too. http://www.prograsstinators.com/ A great example of a progressive pasture based dairyfarm Discussion Group.

Question:- Who produces the Champion Cheddar in the UK? Do you know?

Answer:- MilkLink Lockerbie Creamery! Though there are many different classes .... Best Farmhouse Traditional Award went to Quickes Cheese from Devon.

Isnt it great to see a pasture based cheese win yet again. The Best Extra Mature Cheddar was won by my old friends Murray Goulburn Cooperative from Victoria Australia.....yet another grass fed produced cheese.....top of the (world) class!

Last week I ploughed thru the mud at the Nantwich Show to see the famous cheese tent. What a sight, hundreds of cheeses competing for prizes & cups. If I was critical there was lots of cheddar & cheddar look a likes but not enough variety. Where were the amazing range of cheeses now being produced locally. I wanted to see & taste more of the 800 boutique cheeses now produced in the UK. Nantwich is a world recognized cheese show.

I get grumpy when I'm offered a cheese board that is made up of imported cheeses....we all need to complain loudly about where are the local cheeses?

Pasture based or grass fed dairy products often taste better, look better & are better for you. Pasture fed dairy cows produce milk which is higher in Omega 3s. Clover based pastures are rich in nutrients & minerals.

So how proud was I to see Mary Quicke & her farm/cheese team (members of the Hybrids Discussion Group) win Gold Awards. http://www.quickes.co.uk/

How proud was I to meet up with Catherine Mead cheesemaker of Cornish Yarg who along with husband Ben Mead are also pasture based dairy farmers.http://www.lynherdairies.co.uk/

But how sad is it that these people are not recognised Champions within our dairy industry. How sad is it that virtually no one knows who produces the very Best Cheddar in England.

How few farmers know that "Tickler"http://ticklercheese.co.uk/ is a market leader for Milk Link? We are quick to blame others for low milk prices to farmers but if we dont champion our own Champions......who is really to blame its our world class product?