Cow Management & Cow Health

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On any given day, we have several cows milking over 150#/day. Our goal is to make animal life as stress free as possible. As we’ve grown, we still manage one cow at a time. We don't push the cows to milk - but we work darn hard at giving them an environment their genetics can excel in.

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• The average two-year old freshens at 1-11 and the 2YO group averages 95 pounds of milk.                                       45% of the two-year-old pen is milking over 100 lbs/day.

• Our cows are milking 107.7#/day fat corrected milk.

• We don’t aim for extremes, we manage groups. We aren’t looking for a few high record cows, we are moving 100 cows in a pen toward that direction.

• 24 cows in the current herd have over 200,000 milk lifetime to date.

• 3 cows in the herd have already completed a 50,000 pound milk record.

• 73 cows in the herd have over 46,000 pounds of milk.

• The SCR activity/rumination tracking system has reduced DA incidence and drug costs. 

• Teat scrubbers stabilized low SCC and reduced mastitis incidence by 64%. We have gone as many as 50 days without treating for mastitis. Recorded 29 cases of mastitis in the past 12 months.

• We believe >7 lbs. combined fat and protein is the new benchmark vs high daily milk production.  If our milk production should drop below 100#/day, we expect the components to still hit that 7#CFP/day benchmark.

• Not all sand is equal. By switching to washed frac sand refusals, we dropped SCC by 150,000 vs previous sand we used which had more clay.

• We have expanded the dairy by putting more cows through the barn and sell as many as 80 dairy replacements annually. This avoids CAFO status, increases cash flow, and avoids increased capital expansion debt
   

NUTRITION - keep them eating!

• Ration balanced for 105#/day. (BMR shredlage, Haylage, Canola, SoyHulls)

• 40% BMR cornsilage DM basis (55% as fed);

• 5.5% fat in diet (includes palm fat)