3 tips for improving cow comfort without adding cost

PUBLISHED BY PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING

[Article link here.]

July 18, 2018

By now, your crops are fully planted, and you’re into rounds of cutting hay. Summer is in full swing. Days and nights are continually getting warmer.

And like you do year-round, you’re thinking about ways to maintain comfort for your cows.

While there’s often opportunity for investing in improvements for your barn, there are things you can do now that might take a little time but won’t require a big out-of-pocket expense.

1. Keep your stalls clean and dry every day

You already have the expense of people, equipment and bedding – just make sure cows are getting what they need. Make sure stalls are kept bedded and cleaned. Cows want a comfortable lying surface.

The better you do, the better your cows will do. If stalls are deep-bedded, keep them full and regularly raked. If using mattresses or waterbeds, ensure there’s enough bedding to keep the surface dry.

The cleanliness of the bedding material is another area to focus on. With mattresses or waterbeds, the cleanliness of the stall surface is easy to see. Any waste matter in the stall is visible on the surface of the bed. In deep-bedded stalls, that same waste may settle down into the bedding, creating a bacteria-rich environment that puts cows at risk of infection.

Perhaps include digging out this bedding during spring cleaning, but focus every day on keeping stalls clean to ensure your cows are not only comfortable but healthier, too.

Is it time to revisit your stall bedding and maintenance procedure? Is it time to retrain? Or is it just time to refocus?

2. Check the condition and setup of your stalls

Whether cows moved them, skid steers hit them, or they’ve rusted away, the stall dividers might be crowding your cows. You’ve seen this before. Some stalls get narrowed. Loops are missing or lying in among the stalls. Maybe the neck rail or brisket locator is mispositioned. A little housekeeping and repair can help get your stall numbers back to what they should be.

Cows have changed. Barn design has improved. And along the way, as attention to cow comfort has increased, recommended stall sizes have changed, too. It can be difficult to change the size of existing stalls. If the loops are post-mounted, then there’s no changing the width without a reinvestment.

If that’s the case, focus on adjusting the neck rail or brisket locator to give cows more space in the stall. If the stall system allows for width adjustment, consider making those changes based on the size needs of your cows. This, too, may be a difficult decision if the result is ending up with fewer stalls. But as you manage your cow-to-stall ratio, remember: Proper stall sizing is an important component of cow comfort.

Fixing the loops and moving the neck rail isn’t easy work, but it’s necessary. If your cows can’t fit easily and comfortably in the stalls, their lying time is affected. Making steady progress on these repairs will have a lasting improvement.

3. Use your resources

Certainly, you’ve set expectations for what needs to be done around the dairy. Maybe it’s time for a little retraining and refocus. How’s air flow in the barn? Were the fans cleaned like they needed to be? How do those waterers look?

Are they being maintained so your cows get the fresh water they need? What are the condition of the curtains, misters, footbaths and gates? You paid for good systems. Is your team keeping them working?

You also have plenty of experts and suppliers ready to sell you things. Take this time to get some “free-of-charge” help. Ask them to help you see some things you might be overlooking. And keep them focused on helping you make changes and adjustments that don’t require new capital.

Your veterinarian will have ideas. Your nutritionist surely has an opinion. And dairy equipment suppliers, near and far, should be able to help you make better use of what you already have. Sure, that’s going to take time and probably some small expense, but once you have a list of ideas, you can prioritize them to get the greatest impact where you need it most.

As with good breeding and managed nutrition, cow comfort is an important piece of your dairy puzzle. Done right, you get a healthy and productive herd. And while there may be plenty of areas to invest in improvements, the day-to-day focus on better maintaining what you have should give the results to get you through today so you can plan for tomorrow.  

What’s lurking in your sand-bedded stalls? [PROGRESSIVE DAIRY article]

FROM PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING

March 1, 2018 [Article link at Progressive Dairy]

Luckily, finding lost toys in the couch is pretty harmless, but the same can’t be said for your freestalls. For all of the daily and weekly maintenance you do to keep your sand-bedded stalls clean, there may still be “lost items” lurking beneath the surface that present dangers to your cows.

Set yourself up for success

The most difficult thing we see is that sand bedding becomes a project in and of itself, and the intense levels of stall care can’t be maintained day in and day out as the demands of the farm change during busy seasons, staffing changes, sand supply changes, budget shortfalls and weather fluctuations.

In order to ensure there aren’t dangers lurking beneath the surface, you have to fully commit to managing sand, no matter what the other factors are, to keep your cows safe and comfortable.

Have the “right” sand. The Dairyland Initiative suggests targets for ideal sand would be:

• Dry matter greater than 95 percent, organic matter content less than 4 percent

• Not too coarse and not too fine sand granular size (mason or concrete)

Have staff and time allotted to do the daily and weekly maintenance required:

• Level the top 3 to 4 inches and remove manure-laden sand during each milking.

• Add sand twice a week with at least 50 pounds (23 kilograms) of sand used per stall per day.

• Be mindful this may add additional hours to a current employee’s job or require additional staff.

Have the equipment in working order necessary to do the maintenance required:

• In smaller herds, leveling and aerating the beds can be done with hand tools, while others will choose a groomer with teeth no longer than the recommended 4 inches.

• This will require at least one skid steer.

• The additional equipment will need ongoing fuel and maintenance to function properly.

If you can’t commit to these demands of sand every week, every month and every season, sand bedding might not be the best choice for your farm, considering the increased risk to the cows.

Once you do commit to the above, here are a few additional things to look for to ensure you’re getting the cow comfort sand proponents promise.

Watch out for the ‘compaction zone’

Regardless of the type of sand used, producers should be aware of the “compaction zone.” Fine sand packs more quickly.

According to The Dairyland Initiative, “The compaction zone [is] below the surface of the top layer of sand [and] should be monitored to see if it is becoming as hard as concrete.

If this gets to within 1 to 2 inches of the point of the rear curb, it is time to remove the rear third of the bed and replace it with fresh uncontaminated sand.”

With a compaction zone as hard as concrete, your sand stalls could be stealing quarters from your pocket due to decreased cow comfort.

Environmental contamination

Sand itself is said to be “inorganic,” as it does not support bacterial growth. However, organic material and liquid bonds to the surface of each particle of sand as it is dug up from the ground, used in the barn and transferred through a sand-manure separation system.

Also, the cow itself has bacteria on its skin. Klebsiella spp., coliforms, E. coli, Streptococcus dysgalactiae, Enterococcus spp. and other bacteria live in the gut, get on the cow’s body and are transferred to the sand. Cows also urinate, defecate and leak milk, which supports bacterial growth.

The Dairyland Initiative recommends bacterial counts of the following:

• Fresh bedding total count: less than 5,000 colony-forming units per milliliter, which is a measure of viable bacterial or fungal cells present

• Used bedding total count: less than 1 to 2 million colony-forming units per milliliter (mostly streptococci)

• Coliform count in used bedding: less than 100,000 colony-forming units per milliliter

How to take a bedding sample:

1. Wear latex gloves.

2. Sample the rear of approximately 10 stalls per pen – grabbing mostly uncontaminated bedding from the location of the udder.

3. Mix in a gallon Ziploc bag, sub-sample and freeze overnight.

4. Always compare used sand with fresh sand samples for a baseline.

5. Ship to the lab on ice.

Teat-end health and hygiene practices in the parlour also contribute to instances of mastitis, so it’s not just one thing dairy producers need to manage. Impacts of the stall environment and parlour procedures pop up in multiple areas on the farm.

Spring cleaning

Whether we like it or not, spring cleaning should be done twice a year. That means you should remove all of the sand in (at least) the back third of your stalls twice a year.

Put it on the calendar. Don’t ignore the reminders. Tie employee vacation approvals or bonus checks to getting the job done. Your cows are counting on you.

If you find your coliform count in the bedding is 100,000 colony-forming units per milliliter or greater, you need to take measures to get out the contaminated sand and get fresh sand in.

If you use fine sand, check more regularly for compaction. You’re not investing in sand bedding to have the equivalent of concrete under your cows.

Each farm is its own complex, interconnected system. Everything needs to fit together, there are multiple ways to arrange the farm system, and by stepping back and looking at multiple systems in tandem, the entire farm may see improvements with a few adjustments.

Where can you fine-tune your operation? When is the last time you dug out the back third of your stalls and replaced with new sand? What is lurking beneath your cows’ udders?  

Test your top bedding with these three questions [Progressive Dairy]

PUBLISHED BY PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING

[Article link here.]

Top bedding can make or break cow comfort, cleanliness and milk quality, but the materials used to top stall surfaces are not created equally.

The goals of an effective top bedding on a mattress or waterbed are to reduce the bacteria and moisture that can wreak havoc on vulnerable udders and to provide comfort for the resting cow. Before sprinkling that next scoop of bedding in a stall, consider whether it is helping or hurting the cow.

Just grab a handful of bedding and ask yourself these three questions:

1. Do any sharp objects poke your hand?

2. Is the top bedding wet?

3. How much top bedding is on the bed?

1. Do any sharp objects poke your hand?

When you squeeze a handful of bedding, does it hurt your hand? Chances are if it is poking you, it also feels sharp to the cows, particularly to the udder and teats. Being poked by the top bedding might irritate her pressure points or be a nuisance for the cow, and that may be causing her unnecessary stress.

Depending on the material, there may be a simple solution. Perhaps straw can be chopped finer, or the sawdust provider can provide a different grade with fewer rough particles or a different wood source.

2. Is the top bedding wet?

Some materials like paper mill byproduct or dried manure solids are inherently moist and may put your cow at risk of bacterial exposure. You should ask your paper mill supplier if you are able to get a drier product. If you are using dried manure solids, check with your separator supplier to see if your machine is performing correctly or if you can adjust the settings to get drier manure. If the bedding is excessively wet or soiled after it’s in the stalls, examine stall setup and protocol. What is the maintenance procedure to keep the stalls clean and dry?

It’s also possible the problem is in the stall design. Check cow positioning within the stall. Is the neckrail positioned correctly? Are you using a brisket locator? Is there something wrong with manure management, such as a broken scraper or skid steer? Are stalls being maintained to your standards? Don’t spend time, money and energy improving top bedding if there are other reasons stalls are not clean and dry.

3. How much top bedding is on the bed?

Steve Adam, a cow comfort, behavior and well-being expert with Canadian organization Valacta, often tests bedding surfaces for softness with an impact tester. He notes the “volume of bedding depends on the softness of the stall base, although I don’t recommend no bedding.” He says producers on farms he visits in Quebec usually add 2 to 4 pounds of bedding per stall, per day. “If it’s a hard rubber mat, producers need more than that,” he adds.

Besides the hardness of the surface, consider why you are using that amount of top bedding. Are large and small cows together in the same pens? If so, then small cows will have more space to move in the stalls, and that means that they’re likely to make the stalls messier. In this case, more top bedding may be needed to dry up the added moisture in the stalls. Do you have a reliable and consistent supply of top bedding? If so, you may choose to use more because supply is not a concern. Are mattress covers ripped or has the foam layer started to pack? If mats are no longer providing adequate cow comfort, add more top bedding to provide additional comfort.

If you’re using top bedding simply for drying the stall surface, look at the amount of bedding, frequency and type of bedding to see if there’s any place to make adjustments without impacting cow comfort.

Just like every decision made on the farm, there are pros and cons to the different types of top bedding available for mattress and waterbed stalls.  

Family-Owned Dairy Farms from NY Animal Agriculture Coalition

Did you know that 97% of farms are family owned and operated? It's true. Families across New York and beyond are responsible for bringing high-quality food and beverages to our kitchens everyday. Check out what one of the family members from Hemdale Farms & Greenhouses has to say about the importance of being part of a family owned farm. #DairyFAN #farmlife #AskAFarmer