11. Steve McQueen & The Happy Cows

This post is an update of what is happening currently on the farm before my long weekend off, during which I am heading to Queenstown. It mainly contains pictures of cows. It also contains one small swear word near the end, which was only used because I didn't know what other word to use. In fact I am not even sure it is a swear word.

As of now, at the end of August, 420 cows/heifers have now calved. The milking herd is getting relatively large, especially by UK standards. Although the farm across the road milks 1300 cows at its peak!

The milking herd on its way to be milked

Now that the weather has improved after the torrential downpours of earlier on in the month everything is going a bit easier. Having said that there are always problems that are inevitable when working with livestock, mainly a few sick cows who won't stand up ('downers' for those of you who are un-dairy-educated).

A positive note herd health wise is the fact that our presence of uterine infection, a common ailment when calving outdoors, is low at just 8%. According to the vets who tested all the cows who had calved two weeks ago or more, our herd has the lowest rate of the area, the next best being at 15%.

The calving cows are much happier when calving on dry land, as opposed to the sodden paddocks that would very quickly turn to mud (See post 8. 'Mud-calving'). 

There have been very few problems and the good conditions make bringing the calves in a lot easier.

The repercussions of the lack of clean grass are still and will be felt for a few months. There was a brief spike in the incidence of mastitis (infection of the udder) but that was quickly quashed. Our routine of stripping the herd out twice a week is important in picking up any cases very quickly. For those of you not familiar with milking practices, this is milking each cow by hand (briefly) and checking the milk for any worrying signs, small lumps or a change in colour, before they are milked as normal. 

The major result of the wet weather is that we moved the cows much more often than usual to keep them on clean ground. This played havoc with the grazing schedule and means we are currently way ahead of the plan. To try and slow down the grazing rate, we are feeding out a fair bit of silage (fermented grass) to keep the diet high in energy and also to keep their stomachs full.

Because of the poor weather the grass stopped growing (although it is shooting up now) and the paddocks have a bit less than the predicted schedule allowed for. The supplementary silage also covers for this. 

During the trying times of early August, we noticed that the cows lost a fair bit of condition, they were using up a fair amount of their own body fat after calving. This is natural and perfectly normal, but to prevent too muck of a loss, the barley and molasses that are fed at milking was upped to 2kg/day and ~0.5 kg/day respectively. This gives them a good energy boost and they are looking well because of it. In the trough in the milking shed where this breakfast/ afternoon tea is fed, the resulting mix looks and smells exactly like flapjack  mix. If you threw in a few raisins and baked it, I am sure it would be delicious. 

As well as visually noticing the cows looking a bit skinny, the milk fat measurement had shot up. The protein level had dropped slightly. When such a gap appears between the two important components of milk, it is also a good sign that body fat is being used up as some of it is secreted into the milk.

I would say that now, the majority of the stock is looking well, and we can look forward to spring with plenty of grass growth as the last 100 or so cows calve.

You may be wandering about the title of this post. It is because of the new (actually very old) mode of transport I have been using.

I think the resemblance is uncanny.

The two-wheeler's lack of power is amusing. My occasional lack of balance is not. It is however, pretty good fun, and still very much a novelty. From the kick-start to the leaning into the corners, I feel as if I am fleeing the Nazis whenever I ride across the paddocks. 

That is all for today, I will leave you as I rev my way back home for a snickers sandwich (peanut butter and nutella) and a very hot shower that will hopefully melt some of the cow shit off me.

Feel free to comment and ask me any questions about the farm or dairying in general, and keep reading the blog.