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November 2014 | Issue 5
NEWSLETTER
Dairy Consultancy Services
In this issue:
• Designing effective fodder
beet systems
• On farm reporting options
available through the CfDE
www.dairyexcellence.co.nz
November 2014 | Issue 5
Contents
That's a nice app! Version 2.0 ............2
How now brown
(or black and white) cow ...................3
Designing effective fodder
beet systems......................................4
On farm reporting options
available through the CfDE................5
That's a nice app! Version 2.0
I wrote a similar article a while back in the
Vetlife newsletters so thought I would add some
more that I have come across in my day-to-day
work! The world of technology does move faster
and faster. There are of course more and more
apps becoming increasingly available with the
use of smart phones and the increased use of
social media on farm.
To cheers and boos alike, I must admit I did join
on to Twitter the other week and must in all
honesty say it is quite a handy medium for
communication of a rural nature. #agchatnz is
really quite good and once you get a few
followers, you can quickly get questions
answered and have fairly robust debates in
short spaces of time and of course in short
sentences; @trambopoline is my handle if
you're that way inclined!
The below is a taste of some more apps I have
come across as well as a rerun of the ones which
I think are particularly useful.
Dairy cow BCS tool
This is a very useful app
which allows you to record
both paddock walk and
whole herd body condition
scores over a season. Once
finished, the app shows the
number of cows scored and a percentage
breakdown of cows within the various BCS
ranges. Pretty useful and stores information
over a season so you can follow the changes as
you go; you can also export the data as a csv
file via email as well if you want to store the
data on a computer. It can be a little hard to
find but if you look for Dairy cow BCS tool in
Google Play, you can't go wrong.
FMG rural weather
Recently FMG sponsored
Metservice for an online rural
weather app. This is really quite
good and provides 10 day
forecasts, hour-by-hour updates,
storm warnings and links to the
latest video updates and maps of
weather vanes and rain radar imagery for all
New Zealand rural locations. It is available via
Apple and Google app stores through searching
FMG rural weather.
Grass2Milk
Onefarm (a joint
collaboration between
Lincoln and Massey
Universities) is a feeding
app which allows you to
enter individual cow herd
data (max two herds) and calculate feed
demand based on different crops, supplements
available and paddock sizes etc. It can get as
complicated as you want to make it! It is useful
for understanding feed demand for cows at
different stages of the production season. It is
currently only available to Android users, you
can download the app by going to
http://onefarm.ac.nz/resources/toolbox/grass
2milk/ on your phone and go from there!
2
Protrack drafter mobile
I am a bit slow to the game
as this app has been around
for a while. For those of you
with Protrack, you can
download this app and
create drafts for cows if you
Wood a
see any out in the paddock or Matt
specify
particular drafting schedule i.e. at specific
milkings and dates in the future etc. Would be
pretty handy for those who have Vector or
Drafter 2G Protrack installed on farm.
Minda Lookup,
Calving, Mating,
Pasture
LIC are in the process
of releasing easy to use and handy apps; so far
they have released four to date, the latest being
Minda Mating (and no it is not like Tinder). They
are all easy to use apps and quite handy on farm
and will automatically upload back into Minda
when you are in mobile or Wifi coverage areas.
Search for Minda App on iTunes or Google Play
and download which ones you wish.
Fonterra Farmsource
Again this has been around for
a while but is handy to follow
milk pickups across the season
as well as text grade and
warning alerts from Fonterra; probably
particularly useful when you are away off farm
and want to see how things are tracking on farm
etc. Search for Fencepost in Google Play or
Apple app book.
Distance and area
measurement
This is an extremely useful app
which uses your satellite
function on your Android
phone (sorry, not available on
Apple as yet). The app measures distance and
will calculate areas once you have walked
around the boundaries of set area, a very handy
tool to have for when calculating break size etc.
and area allocation for the herd. Search for
Distance and area measurement on Google Play.
These are just a small taste of the burgeoning
app availability and I trust you will find some of
them useful for your day-to-day work. Of
course, as with all things, some apps do have
terms and conditions which do seem a little
strange such as allowing the app to read your
phones history etc. so the tinfoil hat brigade
may be on to something after all! As with all
things, be careful with what you download and
make special attention upon accepting or
otherwise the terms and conditions, we must
make personal decisions on a case-by-case
basis.
Craig Trotter
Centre for Dairy Excellence, Geraldine
November 2014 | Issue 5
How now brown (or black and white) cow
Coming from a science background, I do often
find myself trying to keep up-to-date with
moves from the industry-good scientists and
research work that is being performed on behalf
of the dairy industry. The endeavor of many
scientists is to publish and distribute their
research articles into referred science journals.
As a scientist once, there are some key papers
that I found fundamentally interesting which
stick within my own mind when debating the
merits of animal production. For a change of
topic, I thought for this article and others in the
future, I will try and summarise some of these
key papers that I enjoy reading every now and
again. This paper was written by Eric Kolver and
colleagues, published in the New Zealand
Society of Animal Production 2000; issue 60,
pages 265-269. An older paper but still a
goody.
This paper was produced in response to the
increasing introduction of North American
Holstein Friesian genetics into the New Zealand
dairy herd and aimed to test the performance of
small numbers of either overseas (OS) genetics
or New Zealand (NZ) bred dairy cows being
offered one of two diets: either a total mixed
ration (TMR) fed at an adlib rate or a grassbased system (Grass) fed at lax rates (i.e.
relatively high post-grazing residuals of at least
1800 kg DM) and then followed by other cows
to ensure pasture quality for the next round.
The animals (heifers) were offered these two
treatments for a full lactation season and
measurements of milk production, live weight,
BCS etc. were recorded consistently through the
season to produce the table above; this is a
summary of the main table of what I think is the
key data.
The two columns on the right represent how
statistically significant the treatments were
between genotype (NZ versus OS) or diet
effects (Grass or TMR) within a genotype; the
lower the number means more significance
(anything above 0.05 is considered not
significant and anything less than 0.001 is very
significant i.e. there is less than a 1 in 1000
chance that the result could be random and a
999 in 1000 chance that it is the result of the
treatment!)
OS cows produced more milk volume than NZ
cows but when it is considered as milk solids,
Genotype
NZ
Diet
OS
P value
Grass
TMR
Grass
TMR
Genotype
Diet
Days in milk
261
268
242
261
0.047
0.055
Milk yield (kg/cow)
3317
5036
3597
5898
0.004
<0.001
Milk solids (kg MS/cow)
281
380
271
401
0.651
<0.001
Post-calving live weight (kg/cow)
379
378
441
436
<0.001
0.834
Season end live weight (kg/cow)
434
501
464
575
<0.001
<0.001
Season end BCS
4.6
6.2
3.9
5.5
0.002
<0.001
3254
4661
3126
4799
na
na
3.12
4
2.74
3.83
0.081
<0.001
DM intake (kg/cow)
0.75
Production efficiency (kg MS/LW )
there is no great difference. This is because OS
cows tend to produce less milk fat than NZ
cows hence not really much difference between
genotypes in terms of milk solids production.
Though OS cows on grass produced more milk
than NZ cows on grass, there was little
difference on a MS basis though they did
produce a higher protein content than NZ grass
cows; this increased milk and protein production
came at the considerable expense of cow live
weight where OS cows put on 22 kg or 5% of
their post-calving live weight at the end of
lactation versus 55 kg (14%) for the NZ grass
animals. This is what we often see on farm too,
that the bigger Friesian animals in grass-based
herds often do struggle to put BCS back on
post-calving. Yes, of course they milk well but
they also tend to be lighter through the rest of
the lactation than their NZ crossbred
counterparts. This can sometimes mean having
to dry them off earlier or feed them
preferentially in order to get them to put BCS
back on through either late lactation or the dry
period.
Probably one of the most telling data points in
the table is the efficiency line; this is a measure
of the cows MS production as a function of her
metabolic live weight. The OS cows having
figures of 2.74 and 3.83 for Grass and TMR
respectively versus NZ cows 3.12 and 4 for
Grass and TMR based rations. This is a measure
of how metabolically efficient the different
breed lines are, i.e. the OS cows produced more
milk but it came at the cost of higher live
weight and therefore a higher feeding cost due
to her increased maintenance requirement.
From this study the authors concluded that
even though both OS and NZ cows produced
similar levels of MS production, the inability of
OS cows to maintain adequate BCS under the
grass-based system through the lactation
questions their suitability for these production
systems. Conversely, I suppose the performance
of NZ cows in the TMR system showed that
they produced less milk, ate less feed but had a
higher efficiency score throughout. As is well
known but also widely debated, it is horses for
courses in that the OS Friesian lines of cows are
probably more suited to systems of a higher
feed input management. At the same time there
is interesting evidence that the NZ heifers going
to China are competing well in comparison to
OS herds, again it appears much the same in
that they are producing less milk but are more
metabolically efficient than their larger OS
counterparts.
On that note, for those of you who might be
interested, the New Zealand Society of Animal
Production have recently opened up their
journals for free online access; there is a wealth
of papers here dating back to the 1940s! Page
59 of issue 66 is a particularly good read! They
have quite a good search function as well for
any burning topics you might have.
Go to www.nzsap.org and see what you think.
If you would like a copy of these papers above,
feel free to get in touch anytime.
Craig Trotter
Centre for Dairy Excellence, Geraldine
3
November 2014 | Issue 5
Designing effective fodder beet systems
supplement. This can be effective, but it is
another job in a busy autumn period, and in our
experience, will sometimes not get done due to
poor weather or the urgency of other tasks in
that period. Whatever approach is used, the
headland should be a ranked priority in setting
the FB crop up.
Introduction
The use of fodder beet (FB) as a forage crop for
winter and shoulder feeding, both as a grazed
crop and as harvested bulb, has been a Kiwi
innovation now being shared with the rest of
the world. The estimated hectarage under
cultivation this current season suggests it may
be one of the fastest growing forage crops in
New Zealand history, which speaks for the value
dairy farming in particular has put on the crop.
With increasing industry familiarity with the
crop, there is a growing confidence to expand
into more sophisticated applications and more
tightly refine the systems of use in the dairy
industry to meet best practice standards of
production, cow health and least cost with
maximum return.
At this time of year, the design of the FB
cropping on farms is the principal concern in FB
systems. Inexperienced advisors on FB can
make both autumn feeding and especially
wintering systems more complicated and
difficult than they need to be. This article
outlines the major points to be considered in
designing a FB system for use in wintering and
lactation feeding on farm.
Wintering
Effective wintering on FB wins or loses with the
transition to the crop. One important design
feature that aids good transition is sufficient
space to begin feeding without crowding cows
and pressuring the lines. Headlands are not a
feature of brassica crops as the lower yields and
lower energy mean they can be eaten rapidly
over the first few days, creating space quickly.
This is not possible with FB, and a minimum of
about six metres headland is required when
each cow has one linear metre of face allocated.
With this headland, it is possible to leave the
herd on the crop from day one, though in most
cases cows will be walked on and off for the
first few days. Without a headland, cows
invariably get allocated, or breakout to, more
FB than they should as the crowding pops
either the line or the farmer's resolve to go
slowly.
Headlands can be produced several ways. Our
preference is to simply plant out an annual or
forage cereal as the headland. This has the
advantage of not requiring any further thought
or activity before use, and gives the cows
something underfoot to chew on and stay
above the ground for the first few days.
However, some farmers prefer to plant the
whole paddock in FB and lift the headland in
autumn, feeding the lifted FB as an autumn
4
Transition is also made easier by designing the
crop to be fed across the rows, allowing a
number of rows to be allocated instead of
metres. In most cases, this makes delegation to
staff more straightforward, reducing errors. It
also encourages the paddocks to be used along
the maximum face length, and in almost every
case, more space is positive for utilisation and
drawing shy feeders onto the crop. One metre
per cow is the minimum requirement. Below this
cows are bullied off the face, the crop gets
trampled, and BCS results are poorer.
After transition, the supply of supplement is the
next most important issue. It is the biggest cost
after the crop, and proper supplement use
drives maximum FB intake and minimises costs.
Paddock design enormously influences ease of
feeding out supplements, utilisation of
supplements, and paddock damage. Historically,
in the northern South Island hay and straw was
fed out daily with tractors carting bales into the
paddock. However, wherever possible it is an
advantage to feed supplements under a wire at
the paddock boundary away from the FB face,
and without entering the paddock. The time
and staff effort saved by this simple
rearrangement cannot be overstated. In one
example in our consultancy, two farms feeding
several thousand head each were on opposite
sides of a road. One farm used a single labour
unit for six hours a day, the other used six staff
for four hours a day, and this went on for the
entire winter.
In most cases, feeding supplements under a
wire will also lift utilisation and so reduce
supplement used. It also means that
supplement use is more closely observed,
particularly at transition, which is always
helpful.
Paddock size is another important design
concern. Mob sizes on FB have been increasing
year on year, and it is routine now to have mobs
of 400 to 500, and this year our largest mob
was 950. There has been a lot of chatter from
armchair experts in various rural professional
groups, many of whom have hardly seen a FB
crop, about FB needing small mobs. Small mobs
simply mean more work, more decisions each
day to get wrong. Aim for mobs of 400 cows,
but recognise that means a 400 m face sometimes the lack of paddock size will be the
limiting factor in mob size. But do not let it be
the other way around!
Finally, a few minor concerns. Water troughs
should never influence paddock design. Today,
any mob size or number of mobs can be well
serviced for water with inexpensive portable
troughs and pipe. Where possible, graze
downhill rather than uphill, as runoff can work
against a drier, firm environment, but graze
away from the prevailing weather direction as a
priority direction. Cows will graze well in poor
weather if it is behind them, but will not graze
into a howling southerly drilling rain into their
faces - they just stop and wait for the weather
to pass, complicating transition and BCS gain.
Platform feeding of FB in lactation
The crop can be grazed or fed harvested to
about 5 kg DM daily in lactation without any
additional feeding inputs. It is always cheaper to
graze, and the leaf DM and nutrient is kept with
grazing. Planting a small area out can replace
silage use in spring and autumn, and even
transition cows at home before transport to the
winter run-off or contract grazing. As FB yields
are driven by high potassium and sodium, it is
possible to “load” paddocks with lots of
effluent across the season prior to planting,
then “mine” this by short grazing times on crop
and usual farm rounds of pasture. However,
using this in lactation will mean that each day
the cows will be in one paddock for a few hours
- through one gateway - to do this. On some
farms, that dramatically increases the walking
distances each day, and this will not help
lameness. It does, however, give a sacrifice
paddock for standing off in poor autumn
weather.
The alternatives are harvesting daily with a
modified FB bucket, which works well and the
whole plant can be fed out with a silage wagon
on pasture, or commercial harvest and storage
in windrows as bulb. In these cases, the FB is
taken to the cows, avoiding the logistical
problems of walking to the crop, while still
“mining” the paddocks and redistributing
nutrient across the farm. These paddocks can be
effluent “loaded” before use, and can be used
as part of normal pasture renewal programmes.
If commercial harvesting is used, the crop can
be followed in autumn by an annual grass for
spring grazing, but beware of wet weather
closing in faster than anticipated - this year a
number of crops stayed in the ground until it
dried out in August.
Summary
Intelligent FB use requires planning, and can
save money, time and hassle in winter and
lactation. Key concerns in designing FB
wintering systems are transition headlands, face
lengths, drill row directions and supplement
feeding faces. Lactation feeding of FB on
platform requires decisions around grazing or
lifting the FB, but can be effectively integrated
into pasture renewal planning and effluent
management strategies.
For anyone wanting more detailed information
on designing FB feeding systems, you can
contact the Centre for Dairy Excellence or go to
www.fodderbeetclub.co.nz
Jim Gibbs
Lincoln University
Jim.Gibbs@fodderbeetclub.co.nz
Craig Trotter and Bernardita Saldias
Centre for Dairy Excellence
craig.trotter@dairyexcellence.co.nz
November 2014 | Issue 5
On farm reporting options available through the CfDE
Monthly benchmarking
The Centre for Dairy Excellence (CfDE), in
conjunction with Vetlife, offers a monthly
benchmarking report which can be made available
to all dairy clients. The report runs from June 1st
until May 31st each year and calculates your
monthly and year-to-date spend - as a whole and
on a per cow basis. The report runs on a selected
group of animal health categories (see Figure 1).
The report allows you to benchmark your costings
on a monthly basis and allows you to follow your
spend at Vetlife through the production season. If
you are interested in seeing this report, please
contact your Vetlife rep' or myself at the CfDE
office and we can get you set up to receive the
report going forward.
Dairy Systems Monitoring (DSM)
DSM is a farm monitoring and modelling service
used to benchmark your on farm performance with
similar farms. It can be used to rationalise any
future on farm changes on production and to carry
out scenario testing i.e. what if analysis...
• What impact will once a day milking for the
cows with a BCS of 3.5 have on farm milk solid
production?
• What will the use of 3 kg DM/cow/day of maize
silage have on milk solid production response
and body condition score gain through April and
May?
• What impact will purchasing another 90 cows
have on total farm performance and production,
what negative effects might it have for the next
season?
• What influence will bringing the calving date
forward by 10 days have on cow BCS and
supplementation feed requirements through the
spring; will it be cost-effective?
The monitoring service is provided through an
initial consultation with you to describe your goals
and targets for the season and to enter your farm
data into the model; then each month, a one page
sheet is filled out and returned to the CfDE to
compare actual performance versus that targeted.
Access can be provided to the CfDE for Fonterra
Fencepost data and Minda programmes to monitor
monthly cow milk production and calving progress
etc. Each month you receive a report of the
performance of your farm with those targets and
whether they are met or not, as well as a
benchmark report of how your on farm
performance compares to other farms in your area.
providing a report back to farm owners,
investors/shareholders and management boards
etc.
The Chatham House Rule applies to all members,
in that information and benchmarks are freely
provided but fully confidential to DSM members
only. Moreover, you will know how your farm
compares but you will not know the identity of the
other benchmark farms in the system.
Figure 2 below provides a snapshot of the data
which can be reported via the monthly
benchmarking reports. There are also tables of
data such as the costs of supplement inputs across
the months, round length and pasture harvested
figures etc. On top of the monthly reports there
are seasonal summaries, regular catch ups and an
annual discussion meeting of all members to
discuss how the season went.
The service utilises FarmMax Dairy Pro to model
future production and performance based on
regional and local data as well as being constantly
updated as new real on farm data is loaded into
the system each month.
If you are keen to know more about where DSM
may fit into your farming operation, please feel
free to give the office a ring anytime (03) 693
1045, or ring Craig on his cellphone (027) 705
0234 or email info@dairyexcellence.co.nz
DSM allows you to monitor performance (across
one or multiple farms) and examine where issues
may be developing in farm production as well as
Katherine Ley
CfDE Administrator, Geraldine
Production Year: 2014-2015 Month: Sep
Grp
Description
02
12
14
19
20
21
22
24
25
26
48
49
54
59
72
73
74
80
81
85
Worm/Lice
Vaccine Cattle
Cow Products
Antibiotics
Fertility Drugs
Anti Inflamation
Drug Room/Ethicas rest
Milking Cow IM
Dry Cow IM
Metabolics
Hardware
Nutrition
Trace Elements/Minerals
Products for LAB Tests
Calf Rearing
lameness
Induction Drugs
Lab Fees
Professional Fees - Large Anim
Travel Charge Income
Total Value & Avg Per Cow
Month Sep
Spend
Month average
per cow
YTD (from 1 June)
Spend
YTD average
per cow
0
0
70
1,827
8
368
1
969
0
18
0
0
653
0
98
0
0
560
1,519
245
6,337
0
0
0.09
2.28
0.01
0.46
0.00
1.21
0
0.02
0
0
0.82
0
0.12
0
0.00
0.70
1.90
0.31
7.92
0
0
70
2,421
54
844
88
2,214
0
62
0
0
1,494
0
249
0
893
560
1,924
430
11,303
0
0
0.09
3.03
0.07
1.06
0.11
2.77
0
0.08
0
0
1.87
0
0.31
0
1.12
0.70
2.41
0.54
14.13
Figure 1 - An example of the Vetlife benchmarking report showing actual September and dairy season to date (June 1st) spending
figures as a whole and as a per cow basis.
Figure 2 - An example of the front page of the DSM report showing actual values as the season progresses versus agreed target figures at the beginning of the season.
Milking cow days
Milking days
Cow numbers
441,764
304
Pasture Growth
Harvested (tDM/ha)
10.7
10.6
Pasture Cover
1.8
80
2500
60
2300
1
40
0.8
2100
20
0.4
1900
0
-10
Crop
Maize silage
Palm Kernel
Concetrates
May
Apr
Jan
Feb
Dec
Mar
May
Mar
Original Target
Apr
Oct
Nov
Jul
Sep
Feb
Jan
Dec
Nov
Oct
Feed 6
Grass silage
Aug
Jun
Apr
Mar
Jan
Feb
Dec
May
YTD+ Target
Original Target
Sep
Oct
Sep
Nov
Aug
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
0
Feb
0
Jan
5
Dec
10
40
Nov
15
80
Oct
120
Sep
20
Aug
25
160
Jul
Diet
200
Original Target
Jul
YTD+ Target
Original Target
Milker ME Intake
YTD+ Target
Aug
Jun
Apr
May
Mar
Jan
Feb
1700
Jul
YTD+ Target
Dec
Oct
Nov
Sep
Jul
Aug
Jun
0
Jun
.1000
1.4
Hay/Straw
Pasture consumed
5