Increasing concentrated feed after calving – 2.

Using DelPro 5.2 or higher, feed tables on DIL (Days In Lactation) can also be used.
This is very useful for increasing concentrate at the right pace after calving.

During company visits, we sometimes come across situations in which the concentrate build up goes from day 1 to 25 days in one stretch. This process can go much smoother, using more steps, as there are as many as 12 steps possible. Especially with heifers, it is very sensible to build up calmly in the first week and then a little faster.
With rations of 2/3 maize as roughage, you should start more slowly than when using a ration with only grass silage / hay. It is also better to build up slowly if the feed fence offers a higher basic ration with multiple by-products. In this case use more steps, for example, divide the first 25 days into 5 steps of 5 days.

And as with many settings: A good concentrate feed table is good for the “normal” cows. If a cow has had a heavy calving, or for other reasons has had too little roughage intake during the first week, it is also better to start with concentrate for this cow more carefully. If the cow is very active, in generous condition and has a quickly increasing milk production: then this cow may be able to start up a little faster!

Take also a look at Tip of the Month July 2013:

http://www.harrytuinier.nl/en/2013/12/31/tips-uit-2013/

Tips on your phone & How to remotely view DelPro together

It is useful to create a shortcut on your phone, “app”, which will take you straight to the Tip of the Month.

Do this by looking up the Tip of the Month on the phone via Google, for example via
http://www.harrytuinier.nl/en/category/tip-van-de-maand/

With Android, you will see 3 dots at the top right, if you press on this, various options will appear, including “Add to home screen”. If you press this you can add this page, if desired with logo.

With iOS (Apple), you also look up the Tip of the Month page. Click on the square icon with the arrow pointing upwards at the bottom, then click on “Add to Home screen”. It will now be added as an “app” on your home screen.

Of course, older Tips can be found there or under the menu button.

From the front page:

Now that the Corona virus is keeping all of us at home, advising has also virtually stopped.
Many livestock farmers, rightly, prefer not to have too many people around the house.

Fortunately, nowadays,  we can remotely catch up with a telephone and laptop, as if we are sitting around the table, discuss settings and answer questions!

LogMeIn and also TeamViewer offer excellent options for this.

If you would like to go over the information from your computer together, please contact us / your Advisor and we will make an appointment.

Fresh air!

Stagnant water, such as that in ponds and ditches, is known to allow dirt, bacteria and germs to survive and spread easily. That is usually easy to see. They often become “stink ditches”.

Drinking troughs could have the same effect. Therefore, watertroughs has to easily be able to flushed easily and / or be refreshed regularly.

However, also not moving air is bad.  Since you can’t see that and we get used to the smell of the stall, it doesn’t stand out. See the Tip about ventilation from August 2011.
Especially the highly producing or unfit cows have issues with effects deriving from still air.
Cows that have to produce a lot of milk also need a lot of oxygen.

Always make sure the air in the stall is moving!
Fresh air is a pleasure for the cows as for people, also in the robot room or milking parlor.

Set the fans at the lowest setting and open the windbreak curtains on (one?) side earlier and more often. Consider that even in the winter when it is not even warm, saturated air should be replaced by fresh air!

Make use of the “Help” Function

Previously, a thick folder with manuals was given with the delivery of a milking robot. However, with an update, a paper manual is of course outdated and is no longer always correct.

Instead of giving a new manual every time, it was decided to place this manual under the Help function in DelPro. Therefore, it is always in line with your current DelPro version.
It is at the very top right => Help.

If you click on “Help” and choose “? Help ” you can access the Help files. Under “Contents” you will find the entire manual and all off the help files.

Under “Search” you can enter a word or term and the help function will show all places where this keyword appears.

Under “List Topics” you will find all places where the keyword is found and if you click on a option here you will find the explanation from the manual under “Display”.

By clicking on that you will receive many answers to possible questions.

A smooth feeding area (in front of the feeding fences)

When the feeding spot in front of the feeding fence is nice and smooth, you can move the feed more easily and clean up the feed residues easily. Besides that, the cows also eat cleaner.

Rough floors are harder to keep clean and more fungi and bacteria hide in them. That means the food is less tasty, it sometimes stinks.

The cow’s nose is, not coincidentally, very close to the mouth and the result is logically: less feed intake. And with feed intake, some fungi, pathogens and infections come in easily. A rough feeding place is not only for feed intake, and therefore milk production but also bad for the resistance of the cow.

So, investing in a smooth eating area is not a luxury.

Mini-milker.

Although we would like to see a cow being milked in the milking robot as soon as possible after calving, it is simply not always possible. Either the cow is too labile after calving, or too sick, or the distance is too far, or for whatever reason it is not possible or not safe.

Fortunately there is a mini milker. This is a useful device, but it milks the most vulnerable cows in your company.

Pay extra attention to ensure that this mini milker is clean, and that on the mini milker as well as on VMS, the rubber liners, pulsation, milk hoses, etc. are well cleaned, function well and do not give an extra chance of infection or poor milkings to these vulnerable cows.

Check VMS Animal Settings.

A new month has started and the “Workroutine” list says that we have to check once a month the settings for individual cows.
Although the default settings are ok for the vast majority of cows, some cows require different settings, sometimes temporarily.

In order to make effective use of these Animal Settings and not accidently leave them if it isn’t necessary, it is recommended to check the overview once a month.

Take for example the “Milking Queue” list. First, click on a cow so that the bar turns blue. Second, press Ctrl + A and all cows turn blue. Third, click on “Batch Edit” and choose Batch AMS Animal Settings. Then, a list appears with the VMS settings for all selected cows.

It is especially important to look at the tab “Milk Permission”  to see which cows are “Allow Action” on Automatic Milk Permission and which are not, and whether “Temporary milking permission when incompletely milked” is being used properly.

Under the tab “Cleaning”, check which cows have a different setting for Teat cleaning or disinfection other than the standard and under “Configuration”, for example, whether “Existing” is used properly on existing teats and Teats to be milked. Also check if “Direct attach to teats” and other teat attach possibilities like “Abnormal teat shape”, are still the best for that cow, or not anymore?
And is “Base take-off decision on lower flow”  only used with the correct cows?

Making good use of these options offers a lot of benefits.

Having a clean computer screen

A clean screen makes your work flow a lot easier. A computer in the barn is easily a whole lot dirtier than one in the house. Not only the dust, but also fly poop can make it difficult to read information on the screen. Unconsciously, this might be a good reason to spend less time looking at your computer!

To prevent the screen from getting dirty, it is advisable to put a cover or towel over the screen after use, so that flies and dirt are almost without a chance.

If the screen is already dirty, it would be advised to use a microfiber towel with a bit of vinegar to clean the screen. It is important to turn the screen off first, the screen must be cold, and to dry it off afterwards (especially in the corners). Be sure not to use glassex, ammoniac, acetone or alcohol: these substances are too aggressive for the screen.

It is not good when you think: “Is this a period, a comma or fly poop? Which number or which cow number is this?”
A clean screen would not only make it nicer for you to read things on the screen, but also for the people who are watching with you.

And lastly, if you actually like looking at your screen, it also means that you’ll see things earlier and be able to proactively act on certain situations.
This also means a reduction in mistakes!

Drying off cows with a sealer?

Many cows are set dry with just a ‘teat-sealer’ treatment like Orbeseal.
Three things are incredibly important when it comes to using a sealer.
The obvious first tip is to work hygienically ofcourse.
Second, make sure that you do not insert the sealer to high. The sealer should close the teat canal and not the udder. (That’s just bad for the udder.)

The third and final tip is that you need to make sure that you “don’t include burglars”. So, when you dry-off a cow don’t only look at the cell count but also take the graph on the Cow-monitor in consideration. Set it to an overview of 365 days and you can review the results per quarter/teat. You can overview the last week or last month but also the entire lactation history and assess whether every quarter is clean enough to set the cow dry only with a sealer or have to use antibiotic.

Dry cows at a distance.

If your farm allows for it, it is much better when you place dry cows at a distance from the VMS station or milking parlor. It would have to be far enough that they do not hear or see any pulsations, concentrate falling or other cows moving around the AMS. Also, its recommended that the cows have no sight of the VMS.

But place them where you can see them often! (Are they healthy? Is their rumen filling ok? etc.)