How many times a day do you milk and what is your rolling herd average? We milk twice a day and our rolling herd average is 27,448 pounds of milk, 1,275 pounds of butterfat and 885 pounds of protein.
Describe your housing and milking facility: Our cows are housed in a three-row freestall barn. The stalls have waterbeds and are bedded with sawdust daily. We milk our cows in a double-6 step-up parlor.
Who is part of your farm team and what are their roles? Rich does most of the feeding, manure scraping and crop management. Michael is employed full time on the farm and does the milking, all the calf care and handles all the breeding. Makayla helps with fieldwork, milking and calf chores. Tyler does milking shifts, fieldwork and much of the maintenance on the farm. Both Makayla and Tyler have full-time jobs off the farm.
What is your herd health program? We do herd health every Monday morning. The vet comes and we do pregnancy checks and general herd health. We vaccinate every spring with J-5 for mastitis. At dry off, cows receive a booster of Ultrabac 7 and Scour Bos and are dry treated with Quartermaster and a teat sealer. After they freshen, they get Bova-Shield Gold HB booster and another Bova-Shield Gold HB booster after they are confirmed pregnant.
What does your dry cow and transition program consist of? Dry cows are in a dry cow lot with free stalls in a lean-to on the old tie-stall barn. The ration consists of straw, corn silage, dry cow concentrate and haylage.
What is the composition of your ration, and how has that changed in recent years? Our rations consist of corn silage, haylage, high moisture corn and custom supplements. We have continued to supply more nutrients (lysine, methionine and a proper balance of trans fatty acids) as the herd has progressed.
Tell us about the forages you plant and detail your harvest strategies. We grow HarvXtra alfalfa, which allows us to cut every 30-35 days without losing forage quality. We cut four crops with the last cutting shortly after Labor Day. Our corn silage is regular field corn. Our feed is stored in upright stave and Harvestore silos. Any excess feed is stored in bags.
What is your average somatic cell count and how does that affect your production? Our SCC average runs between 80,000-150,000.
What change has created the biggest improvement in your herd average? The implementation of G6G and CowManager have given us a higher pregnancy rate and fewer average days in milk. In turn, we are getting more milk out of the cows.
What technology do you use to monitor your herd? We have used CowManager for a year and that has helped Michael find cows in heat along with finding sick cows sooner. This in turn, has brought the pregnancy rate up 6% in the past year and allowed us to treat cows earlier for illness.
What is your breeding program and what role do genetics play in your production level? We enroll all first service cows in G6G at 45 days and rebreeds get put on ovsync along with heifers if they didn’t get picked up by the CowManager system. We believe that getting our average days in milk to 150-165 keeps the averages up. Additionally, Michael has taken over all breeding and works closely with Select Sires to try and keep a competitive edge on generations to come. That has shown on our first lactation heifers.
List three management strategies that have helped you attain your production and component level. Selective breeding. Working closely with our nutritionist to keep a balanced ration with on- and off-farm feed stuffs. Milking and feeding times stay consistent.
Tell us about your farm and your plans for the dairy in the next year. We are a multi-generation farm. Rich is fifth generation and our children are the sixth generation. We are very family oriented, and we wish to pass the farm down to the next generations. We have looked into other ways to expand and become more efficient due to our very fast-growing family. It’s not easy in today’s times, but we are trying to make it work because it is not very often nowadays that you get the opportunity to pass on the family farm to the next generation.
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