Top Tips to Minimise Calving Mastitis and lower BMSCC

70-80% of all cows will calve by the end of August, so what you do to control and manage mastitis this month will have a large bearing on the rest of the season. Aim for the BMSCC in the month of August to never exceed 200,000 and average under 150,000.

• Where possible calve springers on the cleanest ground you can. Back fencing springer cows will likely result in more faecal contamination of the udder as cows are forced to sit down in a smaller area.

• Bolster immune defence at calving. Multimin given pre-calving halved the rate of clinical mastitis in a NZ trial.

• Teatspray springers daily if they are coming to the shed – this will both help to condition the teats (make them smooth and soft) and prevent new infection occurring.

• Collect calves twice daily. Studies have shown that the longer the calf stays on the cow, the greater the risk that she gets mastitis.

• Never make springer or colostrums cows run – this may result in blood in the udder and enable bacteria into the teat through leaking milk - cows may also prematurely loose the teat-sealant. Big walks coming back from the run-off close to calving are also a risk.

• Low pressure wash any dirty/muddy teats before the first milking. Dry with paper towels.

• Strip every quarter at the first milking with gloved hands and be fastidious with hand hygiene. Wash hands in between infected cows.

• During the colostrum period hand teatspray before and after cup removal. This will dramatically speed the conditioning of teats. Teatspray concentration should be not less than 1:5 in this period and should have an overall emollient concentration of 15-20%. Apply teat grease to any cows with cracks or chaps.

• On the 4th day in the colostrum mob, RMT test every cow before she exits into the milkers. Treat any clinicals immediately and retain Grade 2 and 3 cows for retesting in 48hrs. Any cows after 48hrs that remain at or increase to Grade 3/clinical should be treated.

• By being the gate keeper and stopping infected cows entering the miking herd you will set the season up for the best quality milk.

• Use anti-inflammatories (Metacam is best) in cows with significant udder swelling (hard, red, painful), in infected quarters. It is the inflammation that causes a quarter to become light. Early anti-inflammatory treatment in conjunction with antibiotics will give the best results.

• Make sure that all staff are fastidious about hygiene before inserting an intramammary into the teat end. The teat end must be cleaned just the same as you would when teat-sealing a cow to ensure no extra bugs are introduced into the udder. Teatspray after insertion.

• Ensure colostrum cows are not overmilked – cups should be on no longer than 9 minutes.

• Monitor your cows’ teats after cup removal – are they excessively swollen, do they feel thick and meaty? This may indicate either an excessive milking time, too high vacuum, a mismatch of inflation to teat size or faulty pulsation.

• Make sure all your staff know the MRS T rules – Mark, Record, Separate and then Treat.

Spring Cow Management

Around 80% of all cow health issues occur inside the first 30 days of lactation. It is therefore imperative that we prepare a cow so her transition from a dry state to a lactating state goes as smoothly as possible.

When this is done well, the result will be reduced risk of milk fever, mastitis, metritis and ketosis. It will also improve dry matter intakes post calving, early milk production and rate of weight loss.

Ideally the springer cow needs the following:

• She should be on a similar diet to her lactating diet for at least 10-14 days before she calves to allow microbial adaption to occur in the rumen.

• If she has achieved BCS 5.0 or better her total ME intake should not exceed 90% of her total springer ME requirements. For a 500kg cow this is about 105MJME down the throat (very important to build in wastage here). A slight energy restriction in these cows results in modest fat mobilisation which in turn primes the liver for its high demands post-calving.

• For cows under BCS 5.0 they should get 100% of there ME requirements (and not more). This is about 120MJME for a BCS 4.0 or 4.5 cow.

• While calculating a ration to provide adequate ME, also provide another 3kg of cereal straw (or similar) as an effective fibre source.

• Springer cows need higher crude protein requirements than cows in the mid-dry period. To have them in a healthy state they need to be on 15-16% crude protein for about 2 weeks before calving. A springer diet heavily based on fodder beet, maize silage or poor-quality silage/bailage is unlikely to achieve this.

• Magnesium supplementation should begin at least 2-3 weeks before calving.

• In some scenarios supplementing with Anionic Transition salts will greatly reduce the risk of milk fever. Gypsum is a safe calcium salt to give pre-caving (100-150g/cow/day).

• Ensure trace mineral status is adequate before calving. Multimin or Selovin 5 should be given 2-4 weeks before calving.

Treating Lame Cows over the Dry Period

We are now starting the dry period and the cows are heading away for the winter. It’s time to refresh and hopefully take a well-deserved break.

But even on the best farms there will be a group of lame cows at the end of the season and we must take advantage of the dry period to allow these cows to recover.

I would strongly recommend that any lame cows are treated before drying off and spend the winter on the dairy farm.

Lameness is a clear visible sign that a cow is experiencing pain making this an important animal welfare concern. Lame cows spend less time standing and fail to compete with sound cows at the crop face, resulting in a lower dry matter intake and failure to gain condition over the dry period. Treatment often becomes difficult and unsafe if the grazing block yards and head bail/race are not set up for dealing with lame cows.

Lame cow action list:

• Trim any grossly overgrown claws. One of the most important ways to prevent lameness from occurring during the dry period is a functional hoof trim.

• Review the lame cow mob, chronically lame cows may not respond to treatment and require culling from the herd. A veterinary certificate is an absolute must if lame cows are to be transported to the works. If these cows cannot be certified fit for transport, then a decision needs to be made to destroy on farm.

• Look for any new or mild lameness when cows are being yarded for loading onto the truck.

• Giving a anti-inflammatory when treating lame cows will significantly improve recovery rates. Metacam, Rimadyl or Ketomax are all sound options.

If in doubt about a lame cow seek veterinary advice.

General Principles of Correct Fodder Beet Transition

1. Measure your yield accurately

• This is particularly important for the area that you will be transitioning on. Get an expert to help and make sure DM % is measured at a lab.

• Rows are generally planted 50cm apart so there are usually two rows per metre square. A 25-tonne crop should contain 2.5kgDM/m2 and 1.25kgDM/linear row metre respectively. Note some drills are now planting 45cm rows spaces.

2. Allow at least 1 linear metre/cow along the face of the crop

• The 1m spacing means all cows can reach the face. NOTE -any time a practice leads to variable intakes (i.e. shy cows unable to access crop, dominant cows eating more than there allocation) then you increase the risk of acidosis.

3. Ensure there is a 6m (minimum) to 10m headland that can be used for transitioning

• The headland provides space for cows to access the crop face and turn (important for less dominant cows). Use a beet bucket to harvest bulbs and create a headland. The headland can also act as an area where supplements can be fed.

4. Start at 1kgDM/day and stay there for 3 days until you are sure all cows are eating the beet and then increase by 1kg every second day

• It takes over 14 days to reach intakes of 8-9kg. Cows which have never eaten beet before may take 21 days to achieve this (A true ad-lib intake is 10-12kg -depends on breed size).

• Cows should not enter the crop already full on grass or supplement. Full cows will not eat their allocation allowing others to eat in excess.

• Train cows to stay and eat their allocation before shifting them back to grass. Even if most is eaten in 20 minutes, cows should stay on the break for 2-3 hours so they all learn that they need to eat. Moving the herd onto a new break (on mass) straight after milking works well.

5. Setting your allocation

• Cows can comfortably graze 18 inches under a wire. Set your fence 12 inches back from the row you wish to graze.

• Keep it simple – if you know your tonnage/ha, this will covert to kg/linear metre divided by two. Graze rows lengthwise and calculate the total linear metres required for allocation.

6. Feed a good quality supplement, but do not overfeed this.

• For dry cows, feed about @ 7kg of supplement initially. This should be a good quality supplement (not just Barley straw). Keep the supplement levels up around 7kg until the cows reach around 4kg of beet.

• Once at 5kg of Fodderbeet the supplement can be reduced to 4kg (assuming it’s not just barley straw!). Then keep the FB climbing

• 2-3kg of a hay or straw should be maintained even with cows at max feeding levels.

7. If you find beet remaining after the allocated daily grazing time during the first day 7s, pull back – you are over allocating!

• You typically see the biggest issues with acidosis and deaths at day 7-10 of transition. Cows which have been shy eaters or unable to access the crop face may suddenly take a liking to the crop at the same time as break allocations increase. Their intakes may suddenly rise exceeding the rumens capacity to deal with acid production.

Copper Complacency

Over the last 10-12 years a level of complacency has developed around copper deficiency and the need to supplement. This has come about largely through the feeding of palm kernel. PKE has been a great supplementary feed source and it has the bonus of being high in the trace element copper.

However, the replacement R1’s & R2’s are away from the milking platform where they are fed a mostly pasture or crop-based diet depending on the season. Replacements, therefore, are at far higher risk of developing Cu deficiency than a milking herd being fed PKE through the season.

The extent of this problem was investigated several years ago when our practice conducted some basic surveillance work looking at copper levels in rising two-year-olds at grazing. We found that over 80% of R2 mobs sampled had individual animals deficient in copper.

Before disregarding the need to supplement copper in R1’s and R2’s consider the following points:

• Copper levels are at their lowest in late winter/early spring. This coincides with higher copper demands over this period for late pregnancy and early lactation.

• First calving heifers are often slow to start eating PKE in the shed unless they have been fed it as calves. So, feeding PKE can be an unreliable way of supplementing copper to these animals.

• Humeral fractures are a major issue on individual farms and a significant animal welfare problem. While copper supplementation is not the silver bullet to stopping their occurrence it is a key part of the prevention strategy.

The optimal time to supplement Copper in R1’s and R2’s is mid-late autumn before animals go onto winter crop.

Options to supplement Copper in R1’s and R2’s:

• Coppermax and Copaject injection. This can be safely given to cattle over 4 months of age. A 2ml dose is given under the skin of the neck. The dosage may be increased up to a maximum of 4ml if severe copper deficiency has been confirmed through liver biopsies.

• Copper bullets. These are given orally and contain copper oxide wire particles in gelatine capsules. Typically, a R1 would be given a 10 or 20g capsule and a R2 a 30 or 36g capsule depending on liveweight.

To establish the true copper status of a milking herd 5 liver biopsies are the way to go and we should never assume the copper status of a dairy herd is fine because PKE has been fed during the season. Copper levels will naturally decrease over winter especially if the herd is wintered on crop and the property has no in-line dispenser in the water system.

Whilst blood samples can measure copper levels easily, this only tells us what an animal’s copper status is on an individual day. It unfortunately tells us nothing about the animals’ copper stores in the liver which is of far greater importance going into winter.

Liver biopsies are quickly and easily performed on farm. Whilst collecting liver samples from cull cows at the freezing works is convenient on farm liver biopsies have several advantages.

• The vet is on farm so can select the animals to be biopsied.

• Accurate animal identification at sampling.

• Clear traceability of samples from collection to reporting.