VetPak - Make dairy cows perform

Opportunities to be Gained by Preparing Dairy Cows to Perform

Typically, the average New Zealand dairy cow only consumes 3 to 3.5% of her bodyweight daily. That is, 15 to 16 kg drymatter (DM) per day for a 500 kg cow.The cow is capable of consuming and converting 5 to 7 % of bodyweight daily but is prevented from doing this for several reasons:

The desire to eat is not there. Cows suffer from SAD cow syndrome and often ketosis pre and post-calving. This is the glassy-eyed look. Some 40% of NZ cows suffer from this at some time. Affected cows don't graze to the boundary but sit around.
Excessive loss of bodyweight to support milk production in the Spring. This results in a negative feedback to the cows brain that causes further appetite loss.
Inadequate feed supply is available.
Competition for feed is high.
Dietary nutrient balance may be unreasonably imbalanced in Spring. Excess crude protein causes diversion of energy from milk production to ridding excess nitrogen as urea and ammonia. Energy requirement is increased. Inadequate chewable roughage and mineral deficiencies also cause problems.

Step two involves offering enough of the right feed to optimise performance and profits. We donâ€™t want cows sitting around and just looking at good tucker.â€¨

Three windows of opportunity exist to improve their performance economically.

Dry cow management must be right. This means starting and ending with good body condition scores and good rumen size and function at calving.
Start up energy drenches are good practice if all cows are to avoid the SAD cow syndrome and have their appetites
Offering cows adequate feed levels (5-7%) of a reasonably balanced diet means the cow and dairy producer can capitalise on a well-prepared, ready-to-produce milking cow.

In summary the coupling of good management practices with start up drenches (as described in detail in the appendix) can provide the following benefits:

Reduced health costs of $4-7 per cow through reduced metabolic problems, less oxidative disease and other problems.
Improved feed conversion efficiency from reduced weight loss in early lactation. A reduction of 1 condition score (CS) can improve FCE by 30%. This is critically and positively linked to health costs and reproductive failure. Losing only 0.5CS (not 1.0) can result in an improvement of $194.80 per cow.
Improved early appetite peaking at six weeks versus the typical 12 weeks means an extra 42 days at peak are achieved. This overlaps a lot more efficiently with peak milk yield that occurs at 6-8 weeks. The extra energy intake available for milk production values at about $60.50 per cow. This is provided extra DM is offered and costed against this, and the cow is not turned into a weight loss spiral.

These three factors are known to often play a role in the reproduction failure, especially of heifers that are still needing to grow.

Following these suggested management guidelines will help prevent the incidence of anoestrus cows, high culling rate and replacement costs or carry-overs.

A 2-5% improvement in reproductive performance or less empties can amount to $19.50-$39 for every cow in the herd or over $700 per individual failure.
Adding the potential economic benefits could amount to $278.80 of extra income per cow minus DM costs.
Saving a cow from reproductive failure could amount to $1,041.20 if all potential benefits are realised.
The initial investment would be $3 to $6 per cow plus extra DM costs.

All projected benefits are subject to the conditions outlined in the detailed table and disclaimer below.

Disclaimer
The information and financial indicators described are influenced by many interacting management, environment and nutritional factors, and individual economic situations.

The value of this start up energy drench can only be realised when:

1. cows are offered sufficient feeding levels to meet their new appetite potential;
2. cows are offered feed of adequate quality and digestibility;
3. cows are in good condition of 5.5 or better at calving;
4. Cows are in good health status and not inhibited by other metabolic problems;
5. Cows are of adequte genetic merit to ahieve new levels of production and efficiency;
6. The improvements can only be achieved assuming that no nutrient deficiency, inbalance or antagonisms exist.

For this reason, no responsibility can be accepted for use of this information where use of the start up drench does not perform as indicated.

Prepared by Grant Richards, Nutritionist, Newtrition Solutions, 10A The Green, Matapihi, Mt Maunganui.
Creating within cows the desire to eat is one step on the road to success.