Herd health, milking equipment highlight York Dairy Day
BY JOYCE BUFF
Staff Correspondent
YORK - Zero temperatures,
frozen pipes and balky equipment
helped thin normal ranks of at
tendance at York County’s Dairy
Day, January 23, but those taking
part herd management tips on
herd health, milking machinery
and a panel of high-production
herd dairymen. .
About a dozen related ag
business firms were also on hand
for the annual dairy session,
setting up exhibits for the day-long
event at the county 4-H Center.
Herd health programs must be
evaluated for their effect on total
herd production, or the economic
return, according to Dr. Les Greil,
Penn State professor and
veterinarian for the University’s
dairy herds.
Such programs need to look at
infectious diseases, reproduction,
Pent iry.
Griel says spending a little more on herd health can result in
considerable savings if it promotes cow longevity and cuts
culling and replacement costs.
BY JOYCE BUPP
Staff Correspondent
YORK - Three of York County’s
top production dairy farmers laid
their management practices on the
line for discussion as part of the
York dairy day seminar, on
January 23.
Taking part in the panel
presentation and question-answer
session were Jed Beshore of
Beshore Farms, New Cumberland,
Doug Cope, manager of Ashcombe
Dover Dairy, Dover, and Tom
Boyer, Sunnybend Farms, York.
Beshore’s 46 head of i gistered
Holsteins average 19,700 milk and
704 fat. With the low somatic cell
count of 189,000, Beshore spoke to
the topic of care of milking
equipment and cow treatment.
He related how a round of
mastitic problems in the past led to
a trouble-shooting session with
University specialists. A system
checkup culminated in the
discovery of improperly working
vacuum regulators. Beshore has
also instituted a change to new
inflations every 900 milkings, plus
regular replacement of other
rubber milker machine parts. A
switch of hoses is also made every
other time inflations are replaced.
Cow preparation includes in
dividual paper towels for wash and
dry, strict adherence to teat dip
ping, and dry treating only
quarters that have exhibited
problems during the lactation.
When mastitis does flare up,
Beshore draws and refrigerates a
pre-treatment sample of the af
fected quarter, to be used for later
cultures if standard treatments
bring no response.
metabolic and mastitic disorders,,
plus calf diseases and parasite
controls. In addition, a herd health
program, Dr. Griel emphasizes,
must include employee
management, and the involvement
and understanding of farm em
ployees as to how - and why -
certain health practices are to be
handled.
Herd health programs need not
be all that expensive, he explains,
in comparison to other fixed costs
, per cow per year.
Studies cited by the veterinarian
show an average cost of $26 per
cow per year in a herd with a 15,000
pound herd average, or. about 1.3
percent of total yearly per-cow
cost. That compares to a feed cost
of $585, or 29 percent, and building
and equipment costs of $354, or
nearly 18 percent.
But nearly 20 percent of a yearly
cost per cow, about $385, is for
York dairymen reveal management practices in farmer panel
With a current herd of 165 head,
normally 250 head before the milk
diversion program, the Ashcombe
Dover Dairy maintains the herd
average of 18,600 and 680 fat.
Reproductive management was
the focus of Cope’s presentation,
and his herd health program in
cludes regular vaccinations,
monthly herd checks, plus mid
month rechecks for problem in
dividuals.
Cows in the Ashcombe dry lot
must walk a distance every day for
water, and Cope credits this
regular exercise program to the
herd’s records of little problem
with overconditioning, or “fat
cow” syndrome.
Regular reproductive checks, he
adds, force a study of cow records
and bring problems to light. He
carries with him at all times a list
of cows to be watched closely, and
farm employees are alerted each
day of which cows to observe.
And, when the vet is doing herd
checks, Cope believes a dairyman
should “press” and ask questions
to get as much information about
her condition as is possible.
At dryoff and a few weeks prior
to calving, cows get selenium
boosters. If a fresh cow has not
cleaned in twenty-four hours, she’ll
get a systemic antibiotic.
Sacrificing a few milkings, Cope
figures, is far better than losing a
whole lactation due to prolonged
cleaning problems.
A warning from Penn State vet
Dr. Les Oriel, however, was that
selenium- Vitamin E supplements
don’t usually benefit herds unless a
30 to 40 percent rate of retained
placenta problem is occuring. He
replacement of the animal. If
additional herd health costs can
prolong a cow’s production life,
and eliminate excessive culling,
the higher vet bills perhaps needed
to maintain cow health are still
probably less than cow
replacement costs.
Computers are expected to play
increasingly larger service in
maintaining herd health records,
especially in the areas of
reproductive health, predicts the
PSUvet.
“Summarization of health
records is where we need com
puter help,” says Griel. “Other
wise it can be pretty difficult to
keep track of details. Computers
used on a weekly basis can help
alert to open cows, cows to watch
for heats and can generate
management reports.”
Dr. Steve Spencer, PSU’s dairy
extension specialist on milking
equipment, recently spent a five
month sabbatical leave in Ireland,
studying European milking
systems.
Irish herds, he says, have all
cows freshen in January and
February, milk through fall and
then stand dry for the last two
months of the year, when the
standby forage, grass, is least
available.
A special interest of Spencer’s
was researching the part that
slippage of the rubber inflations, or
teat cup lines, contribute to
mastitis problems.
Thirty-two different lines were
tested during Spencer’s working
stay at an Irish daily research
facility, plus a couple of U.S.
brands that he had shipped there
for his own comparison.
European liners tend to be
wider, and composed of a much
harder rubber than the U.S.
brands. While there seems to be
less slippage during the milking
process, those liners are hard on
the cow; and brand new inflations
are not generally used there on
first calf heifers. A liner is put into
the machine at the beginning of the
milking year, and generally used
labeled selenium a “very toxic
material, possibly carcinogenic,”
but added that shortages of the
mineral-vitamin mix do seem to
affect the cow’s immune system
and can cause certain vaccines to
be of little or no value.
With an almost zero calf loss rate
in their several years of dairying,
the Tom Boyer family’s calf
raismg program was the third
panel topic.
Boyer’s herd of 45 registered
Holsteins has a 20,000 milk and 760
fat average. In heifer-measuring
programs conducted over several
months by extension personnel
across Pennsylvania, the Boyers
topped the state in heifer growth.
Boyer, however, is quick to credit
his daughters, Bridgette and
Jenelle for heifer care, since they
are in charge of the calves until
several months of age.
Jed Beshore
liners, or inflations, to Wayne Beshore.
throughout that season of milking.
Spencer does suggest that
domestic liners may have gone too
far to the narrow bore, ultra-soft
other extreme, and the very soft
rubber of a liner can allow it to slip
more under the pulsating pressure
of milking vacuum systems.
Inflation mouthpieces are also
different in the European design,
generally much larger.
When air leaks into a milker
from a slipper liner, it can alter the
pressure on the other quarters, in
either the opposite or diagonal
direction, creating mastitis in
Chester plans
WEST CHESTER - An in
formational and organizational
meeting for a Chester County Crop
Management Association will be
held on Thursday, February 7,1985
at 7:30 p.m. The meeting will be
held in the social hall of the Oc
torara Presbyterian Church,
located on Route 10, one mile south
of the intersection of Routes 10 and
30.
The evening’s guest speaker will
be Murry McJunkin, a farmer
from Centre County. Murry was a
charter member of the Centre
Countv Crop Improvement
bedded boxstalis, or preferauly
outside in suitable weather. Navels
are dipped in iodine and colostrum
fed within the hour, and the calves
left with the dams for the first few
days.
Housed in outside hutches,
calves receive top grade milk
replacer and 18 percent free choice
calf starter. No hay is given until
calves are a month old, and then
they get only a timothy, or second
cut, fine-stemmed alfalfa.
Bottle feedings continue to about
two months, and after six weeks
starter grain is replaced with a
slightly lower protein grower mix,
until three months old. Then calves
go from hutches to groupings of up
to six, and are vaccinated and have
any extra teats removed. Regular
worming programs are included
for all animals.
Between each calf housed in a
hutch, the open-ended pens are
/ >
Doug Cope
those quarters. He estimates that
70 percent of liner slippage can’t be
heard, but a “squawking” milker
is a signal of a major slippage
problem.
Through the testing of the
various liners, the researchers
found that there were some in
dividual cows on which all liners
slipped. While neither Spencer nor
his Irish counterparts had time to
further pursue that problem, the
Penn State professor speculates
■that it might have a relationship to
the thickness of skin on certain
cows’ teats.
crop meeting
Association, the first association of
its type in Pennsylvania. He has
found the service of the association
to be extremely benefical in
managing his crop production. He
will discuss the advantages and
problems associated with a crop
management association.
Mel Brown, coordinator for
Pennsylvania Crop Improvement
Associations, will also be present
to answer questions about the
organization and function of a
County Crop Management
Association.
turned over for sunlight exposure a
few days,a nd moved slightly from
the previous position.
At six months, heifers go on
heifer rations and rougher hay,
and a little silage is added to the
diet. Bred heifers are put out on
pasture, with timothy, grass and
alfalfa hay, plus limited quantities
of silage. Target for freshening
heifers is at one year, eleven
months or a maximum of two
years old.
Boyer added that he has little
problem with cows freshening
during the mght, after following a
tip he heard many years ago at a
dairy meeting. That speaker
suggested that cows dried off after
morning milking will not usually
freshen during the night-time
hours. Boyer decided to test the
theory for himself, and rarely has
to get up during the night for
calving assistance.
Tom Boyer