How long do lads keep dairy cows on straw to dry them off ? I have them on and off with a week and find it hard to soak them up.
The idea of straw is to force them to eat large amounts to try to meet energy requirement. This apparently keeps the rumen open stops it contracting or some nonsense.I taught straw would be better to dry them ?
I taught straw would be better to dry them ?
Dry them off antibiotic tube and sealer and straight into cubicle house on ad lib grass silage. We give them the poorer stuff. But that could be 70 to 75dmd. They stay on that till they calf and we generally have few issues. A good antibiotic and a good sealer are most important.
I'd disagree while they won't dry them up ours will have full bags for a couple days after tubing and the bags just go down a few days later.
We've tried milking them once a day for a couple days and then every other day over a bout a week. This was before we used Osmonds tubes. Saw no difference in mastitis reduction calving down.
Used Osmonds tubes and we could dry them straight off with no problems.
Had a batch of 20 to a few years ago and had no Osmonds to use so used bovaclox from local coop, used the same system dried straight off and we lost 6 to ecoli over the next 3 days.
Next batch we milked them on and off over a week cause we still had bovaclox and thought we just didnt do our job right. Teats were wiped disinfected whole nine yards. Lost another 6 to ecoli.
Back to Osmonds tubes and we have eventually gotten brave enough to dry them straight off again and we don't even get any mastitis.
A good tube is essential imo.
You're right in what you are saying but fact remains that without blanket treatment when a cow that needed that intervention and doesn't get it she's lost.Well its not an opinion but fact that not all cows need an antibiotic at drying off. I was sceptical at first when trying it, but it's definitely working. Quite a number of my cows have never had a dry cow tube and some have never had an antibiotic of any sort. And no, it doesn't do anything to help them dry off unless there's an underlying SCC issue, which sounds like could be the issue in your case. I've had one case of dry mastitis in 4yrs and that was a high SCC cow that I dried off and culled and put on to slats so can only blame myself for that.
I'm not claiming to be a great farmer on this, I'm far from it, what I'm saying is that with good dry cow diet management, surgical cleanliness at drying off and keeping the cubicle beds very clean married with a stress free dry cow period, antibiotics can be seriously reduced. Consumers want this, processors want this, and tbh farmers should be looking for this also. Selective dry cow therapy is coming down the line so it's best to be proactive on this.
You're right in what you are saying but fact remains that without blanket treatment when a cow that needed that intervention and doesn't get it she's lost.
I'm not sure how many farms are out there that are realistically clean enough.
It is something that needs addressed but I'm not sure if there is any procedure to date without antibiotics which can guarantee success 100% of the time. And I wouldn't be comfortable with that risk.
Diet and stopping milking causes a cow to stop producing milk. Dry cow tube help to prevent infection and mastitis. They do nothing to reduce milk production.
You're right in what you are saying but fact remains that without blanket treatment when a cow that needed that intervention and doesn't get it she's lost.
I'm not sure how many farms are out there that are realistically clean enough.
It is something that needs addressed but I'm not sure if there is any procedure to date without antibiotics which can guarantee success 100% of the time. And I wouldn't be comfortable with that risk.