Production Figures
The cows at Vortex are run in an entirely commercial environment, there is no preferential treatment for any cows. The milking herd is run as a single 200 cow group at all times. The main focus for the business is milk production. We try to breed better and longer lasting cows to improve efficiency and because it is interesting!
The Herd is now milked twice 3 times a dayand our current Rolling production averages 2009 are as follows:
Yield: 11285 Kg
Butterfat: 3.96%
Protein: 3.03%
Scc: 82
Bactoscan: 10
Calving Index: 400 days
Replacement rate: 19%
N.B All production figures are Milk Sold.
Milking time!
Cow Management.
Housing
The Milking and dry/transition cows are kept in deep sand bed cubicles, with "Dutch Comfort" divisions. We chose deep sand bedding for its superior cow comfort and health benefits. The current milking cow sheds contain 210 cubicles. Since changing from straw bedding to sand we have seen our cell counts and mastitis incidence cut by nearly half. We have also seen a reduction in lameness and elimination of hock and knee abrasions.
Cubicle shed
Sand for Cow Comfort!
We also bed our calving pens with deep sand. We feel this also helps to keep cows cleaner and therefore improve hygiene at calving. We have seen a good reduction in numbers of cows calving in with mastitis and calves with navel infections since making the change from straw bedded calving pens. All cows are given fresh milking ration and clean water post calving to encourage intakes. All calves have navels dipped with strong Iodine solution and are feed colostrum within 6 hrs.
Sand Calving pen
Milking
The Cows are milked three times a day through a 16:16 Fullwood direct-to-line herringbone parlour built in 1996. We sell our milk to Dairy Crest on a liquid contract. As a liquid supplier, we are encouraged to produce an even profile of milk production, which means we are aiming for more of an "all-year-round" calving pattern.
16:16 Milking Parlour
We feel it is very important to have a good milking routine to ensure good milk hygiene and let-down. We aim for a 1 minute lag time between pre-dipping cows teats and attaching clusters. We try to be as meticulous as possible with teat preparation and post milking teat spraying.
Our milking routine is:
1: Strip foremilk.
2: Pre-dip.
3: Wipe and dry teats.
4: Attach clusters.
5: Spray teats with Iodine.
Feeding
The basis of any successful diet relies on quality forages. The Vortex herd’s ration relies on a 50/50 split of grass silage and maize silage. The grass silage element is a good first cut, relatively dry and fibrous to aid with rumen health and provide structure to the diet.
Intakes of 14Kgs of forage dry matter are achieved with the help of molasses and allows sensible levels of concentrated feed to be incorporated without detriment to rumen function.
5Kgs of a dairy blend is mixed with the forages and molasses by a JCB loadall equipped with a “weighlog” to ensure intakes are correct and monitored. The dairy blend is comprised of soya, sugar beet, wheat, barley, molasses and a C16 fat.
This outside mix is then bucket tipped into troughs and offered adlib, providing M+30 litres at a DMI of 19kgs and a crude protein of 16%.
Megamilk SB19% protein parlour cake is then fed to yield, at a maximum of 8kgs per day. Cows yielding 45+ litres are expected therefore to be eating 26kgs in total of dry matter, with the diet not exceeding 17.5% crude protein.
The ration is formulated with energy density (currently 12.4 M/D) and protein quality always in mind. My view is that it is not crude protein percentage that is important, but grams of DUP (quality protein) that really makes a difference. The base ration contains 30% more DUP than “required” yet is only 16% CP.
The same view is taken at the top end. The generous inclusion of soya, megalac and prairie meal in the parlour cake, with minimal rape (RDP) delivers energy and quality protein to the cows that need it the most.
Getting a flying start to lactations is considered of paramount importance. Over the last 18 months improvements in dry cow managemaent have paid dividends, as cows have calved- in better acclimatized to the lactating ration. This has helped intakes in the critical stage of early lactation and allowed less reliance on parlour feeding.
The nutritional plan moving forward is to:
1 Maintain healthy, fertile cows.
2 Maintain or slightly improve milk yields.
3 Maximise butterfat percentage, (as desired by milk contract) provided it is economic to do so.
4 Do everything possible to ensure post calving intakes meet or surpass production requirements.
I look forward to continuing to work with this exciting, progressive herd.
Charlie King - Three Counties Feeds – 07917 203790
Breeding
Our breeding objectives are simply to produce good productive and long living cows. We are aiming for each cow to acheive at least 50 tonnes of milk and 5 calves in her lifetime. The sort of cow we like has good legs and feet and great locomotion, she has a good functional udder with good attachments and correct teat placement. We also like her to be a good milk producer, ie a good level of production with good cell counts, temperment and componants. Importantly she should not be too "Extreme". We like her to be medium sized and able to carry some body condition or recover body condition quickly after peak yeild, as we feel this is one of the most crucial factors in obtaining good fertility.
We try to acheive this by paying attention to each individual cow and identifying her strengths and weaknesses from milk recording and classification information, and experience of working with her and the family. We select a bull that should improve her weak points whilst protecting him for his weaknesses. We try to use a combination of both type and production bulls to acheive our breeding goals, paying particular attention to lifespan scores as well as health and management traits.
Bulls we are currently using:
O-Bee Manfred Justice
Picston Shottle
Etazon Lord Lily
Ramos
Laudan
Alpag Iron Active
Leif
Morning-View Ashlar
Our best milking cows are by: Mtoto, Manfred, Lord Lily, Outside, Laudan and O'man
Milking Heifers by: Outside, O'man, Shottle, Mango and Zesty
Youngstock by: O'man, Shottle, Outside, Ramos, Lookout, Zade, Active, Tennyson and Die-hard.
Pedigree
All of our cows are registered and classified by Holstein UK, we also milk record with CIS on the "Holstein Complete" package. We feel that being pedigree adds a lot of value to our stock and gives any prospective buyers access to accurate, un-biased information about our animals.