“The only change to the diet during the winter is that we also feed between 9kg and 10kg of home-grown fodder beet per cow,” says Paul. “The cows love eating it and it has done a great job of maintaining butterfat and protein, with milk protein actually increasing from 3.16% in 2016 to today’s 3.26%.”
Paul and Bryan are happy with the milk yields and milk quality that the cows are achieving, but now want to focus on other areas of the business.
“We calve all year round and rear around 80 heifers a year,” says Paul. “Our target is to get heifers calving down at between 22 and 24 months of age, but we are some way off that at the moment. “We have made some improvements, switching from rearing calves indoors, to using calf hutches, and, this summer, we have trialled rearing calves outdoors on a paddock-based system. We have had good results and calf health has definitely improved,” says Paul.
During the past two years, Paul and his brother have also worked hard to improve herd fertility. Around 75% of cows are currently served 80 days after calving and the herd’s calving interval stands at 390 days. “We have been working closely with our farm vet and fertility specialists, Alta Genetics, to synchronise our system so that we can achieve a target of serving cows by 70 days after calving.”
Dry-cow management has also come under closer scrutiny and there have been some changes. “We had a lot of issues with milk fever but two years ago, on the advice of ForFarmers’ Peter Cade, we started feeding TRANSLAC Advance, with Calcium Capture, and we’ve hardly had any problems since.”