Dairy recommendation: Making cows identifiable to keep away from errors

Making cows identifiable is essential as dairy farmers make their last preparations for a return to exploit manufacturing in 2023.

Whereas some farms have already began calving, most aren’t anticipating the primary cows to calve till the primary week of February.

The early phases of lactation imply that quite a few cows won’t be able to enter the tank and these cows should be identifiable.

Spring is a busy time on farms, with cows calving and the elevated workload that brings, which in flip brings an elevated likelihood of errors being made, i.e. antibiotics getting into the majority tanks on farms.

These could possibly be attributed to elevated working hours, tiredness and poor identification.

A mistake like this, that isn’t caught earlier than the lorry comes for assortment, is usually a main headache to cope with.

With a purpose to assist keep away from errors like this, a plan to obviously establish cows whose milk can not enter the majority tank must be put in place on each dairy farm.

Making cows identifiable

Among the newer milking parlours have techniques in place that permit for milk to be diverted, however many farmers usually are not milking in these parlours.

A whiteboard or blackboard on the prime of the pit with the cow’s freeze-band quantity and date that her milk can enter the tank is one easy means of holding observe for these farmers.

If cows usually are not freeze-branded, it could be one thing to have a look at doing, because it makes identification a lot simpler.

Nevertheless, cows ought to nonetheless be marked one other means comparable to with a purple band, purple tape on her leg or purple scrap on her udder.

One technique that’s changing into more and more extra frequent on farms is using completely different colored bands on cows’ legs. These often are available in packs with 5 completely different colors: Yellow, purple, blue, inexperienced, and orange.

These bands can be utilized a number of alternative ways. For instance, purple might point out milk that shouldn’t go into tank and orange might point out a three-spin cow.

When you needed to make it even simpler, you can; orange could possibly be used to point that the entrance spin on the leg the band is on is to not be milked, and the blue could possibly be used to point that the again spin on the leg the band is on is to not be milked.

Yellow might imply a gradual milker and inexperienced could possibly be used on cows which might be solely to be milked once-a-day.

These bands will be very helpful on farms the place reduction milkers are coming in or there may be quite a few employees milking the cows.

There’s at all times an opportunity {that a} band falls off, which is why cows which were handled with antibiotics ought to nonetheless be sprayed purple to make sure they are often clearly recognized.

Two herds

Another choice to forestall errors from occurring is to function two herds in the course of the spring.

One herd might comprise all of the cows with milk appropriate to enter the tank, whereas the opposite herd would comprise something that’s freshly calved, has been handled with antibiotics and cows with every other motive for his or her milk not getting into the majority tank.

Which means that you don’t have to have a look at every cow to find out if their milk can enter the tank or not.

As an alternative, you’ll be able to milk the herd that has the milk that’s allowed to enter the majority tank, then take away the pipe from the tank and milk the second herd.