Still three-teat?

A cow that became three-teat due to an udder infection during the previous lactation sometimes produces milk from all four teats after calving. Sometimes very well, often less milk and sometimes also of (too) poor quality. But if the milk is good, the cow could be milked as a four-teat again.
This sometimes occurs after a coli and very occasionally after a streptococcus uberis udder infection.

The robot will certainly continue to milk her as a three-teat if you do not adjust it in DelPro.
And then she will certainly remain a three-teat… Or will she get udder infection on that teat again…

It is always worth assessing this after calving.

And of course, we will follow up in the Cow Monitor afterwards to see whether it was a sensible choice!

Good for teat locks and healthy rumens.

It is still important that cows stay “on their legs” for at least 20 minutes to half an hour after they come out of the VMS before they lie down. This is very important for closing the teatlock muscles under the teats. And thus ensures considerably less risk of mastitis.

But it is also important for the rumen that they eat enough roughage and drink water before and after the concentrate feed in the milking robot or concentrate feed box, and therefore do not lie down immediately.

Therefore, make sure that the cow has something to do after the robot visit. Offer her fresh and clean (heated?) water and often provide fresh food at the feed fence where she feels invited before she could go to a lying place.

And, of course, she also stays on her legs longer with healthy claws.

Hygiene and work routine.

Shaving or burning udder hair, trimming tails to keep them cleaner, every farmer who works with milking robots knows that.
Clean camera glass ditto.

Dry boxes and clean udders / cows, it is good for hygiene but also for the capacity of a milking robot.

The V300 attaches so well that we are becoming a bit more relaxed about this.

And now that field work is starting again, it is important to remain strict about this!

Isn’t it remarkable that one farmer with the same production the milking robot uses half a minute less per milking session…?!?

And that means room for 10 – 15 extra milkings per VMS per day!

Enjoy entering data in DelPro.

Cow calendar:  It is wise to enter cow data such as heats, insemination, drying off and calving into DelPro every day.

DelPro returns much more interesting data and lists when you are “up to date”.

Treatments: Entering all treatments, including the correct teat or leg, provides an overview of what has already been done to this cow, but also provides complete lists of what has been done to all cows over a period, an annual overview for example, and which products/medicines have been used.

Excluding from ration calculation:  Despite the fact that very nice feed tables are used, you still have to exclude some cows for a reason, usually temporarily. Checking this and being able to find it in a list helps the cow to become healthy again and us not to forget to turn it off again.

Intending to sell:  When you know that a cow is in her last year and for example should not be inseminated anymore, it is good to indicate this in DelPro. This also makes the lists with the cow calendar events much cleaner and therefore more clear.

And with a DeLaval V310, DelPro also knows immediately that this cow no longer needs to be sampled for progesterone and that saves sticks => costs!

Note: A computer cannot think of anything itself but can remember very well.
So let the farmer do the thinking and the computer do the remembering !

Replacement percentage.

On farms we encounter replacement percentages of 50% to less than 20%. This concerns heifers that are needed for annual replacement in the herd.

During presentations I often show the list below. How, in my estimation, does the living environment influence this economically very interesting figure.

Suppose you have 100 dairy cows,
how big do I estimate the influence on the replacement percentage to be? :

1. A good selection / straw pen after VMS:                             2 –  5  cows
2. Comfortable cubicles with nice bedding:                             5 – 10 cows
3. Claw care prior to drying off:                                               5 – 10 cows
4. Safe, dry, walking paths with good grip:                              2 –  5  cows
5. Dry cows and heavily pregnant heifers
   having plenty of room to move:                                           2 –  5  cows
6. Extra structure and condition maintenance for dry cows:    5 – 10 cows
7. 2-Minute-Check at each round of the barn:                         5 – 10 cows
8. ………………………

The better the conditions are in order, the lower the rearing costs you have, the easier the cows walk and produce and the more space you have to select in the bottom of the herd.

Fertility does not appear in such an overview, but resistance does ….!