South West Scotland Dairy Monitor Farm. Willie Fleming Hillhead Kirkpatrick-Fleming Lockerbie, DG11 3NQ Tel:

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1 South West Scotland Dairy Monitor Farm Willie Fleming Hillhead Kirkpatrick-Fleming Lockerbie, DG11 3NQ Tel: Meeting report Monday 21 st November 2011 Useful Contacts Heather Wildman - DairyCo facilitator Mobile: heather.wildman@dairyco.ahdb.org.uk Sophie Kinnear- DairyCo facilitator Mobile: sophie.kinnear@dairyco.ahdb.org.uk Peter Beattie Technical Projects Manager QMS Mobile: pbeattie@qmscotland.co.uk QMS Monitor Farm website: Alistair Stott Speaker Tel: Alistair.stott@sac.ac.uk Neil Baker Speaker Mobile: neilbaker@bakerscheddar.co.uk

2 Herd Replacement Rates How much is it costing your business? 17 farmers the Monitor Farm meeting held at The Somerton House Hotel, on Monday 21st November 2011 Speakers: Alistair Stott, SAC Dairy Economist Neil Baker, 2010 Farmers Weekly Dairy Farmer of the Year Meeting Structure: 1 Willie Fleming give a review of what has been happening at Hillhead 2 Alistair Stott Identification and evaluation of the causes of involuntary culls in the British Dairy Herds 3 Neil Baker Setting, managing, monitor and reviewing herd key performance indicators Meeting objectives: The main objective for this meeting was to evaluate where, through management, the Fleming family could improve farm profitability. 1.Willies Report: Things are moving along nicely at Hillhead at the moment. Cows are settled and currently averaging % fat and 3.30% protein SCC 120 bactoscan 15. Feeding a Ration of Grass silage 15 Maize silage 13 Vitagold 7 Sodawheat 4 Blend 5 Beet Pulp 3 Straw 0.5 Megalac 240g Agrisorb 120g Minerals 240g Yeast 30g Cow numbers continue to increase, almost exactly a year after moving into the new unit there are 208 milking and 30 dry. 60 more cows than the same time last year, the increase all coming from our own stock. This was achieved by reducing the culling rate because of increased cow comfort and calving heifers younger therefore bringing them into the milking herd quicker. The speed of expansion has been pleasing, we have even been able to sell some surplus heifers, with 10 being sold in the last 3 months to average just short of Our culling rate for the last year is 21% with a death rate of 1.8%. The main reason for culling has been lameness (35%), followed by mastitis (23%) and infertility (14%), with the remaining 28% going for various other reasons. This is a relatively low cull rate for a high yielding herd and we look forward to further improvement in the coming year.

3 Calving interval continues to improve; in Jan 10 when we became monitor farm it stood at a shameful 430 days, but through improved comfort, activity monitors and more attention to detail in the dry and transition period it is currently a more respectable 409 days. The projected interval is 403, and falling every month. The rolling average yield is 3.85 fat and 3.20 protein, compared to 3.79 fat and 3.24 protein for the previous 12 months. To increase cow numbers, increase yield and reduce calving interval has made a happy atmosphere at Hillhead as it helps the bottom line, and I look forward to comparing 2011 milkbench figures with the 2010 figures. Maize harvest was challenging due to the adverse weather, however yield and quality have both been good- In the 13 acre Maize field, we ploughed it immediately after harvest and drilled Italian Ryegrass as an experiment to try and get a cut of grass in the spring before putting it back to Maize, if it works this year, it ll surely be worth a go again. 2. Alistair Stott: Dairy farmers continue to leave the sector in the face of increasing production costs leading to lower confidence, whilst at the same time the value of replacement stock has increased 20% on the year What is cull? Voluntary cull- through choice (old, low milk yield) Involuntary cull- forced (injury/lameness/disease) Unambiguous cull- mix of voluntary & involuntary What are the main important culling issues? Age Milk yield Fertility Randoms Economics Mastitis Various Risks of faults and running costs rise with age, performance drops with age, net replacement costs rise with age, and most importantly poor replacement decisions disrupt whole business for years

4 This Graph looks at the proportion of herd still in production between disease free and Johnes positive herds (Sott, Jones, Humphrey, Gunn 2005 financial incentives) Reasons for involuntary cull Infertility Accounting for between 15-40% of all cows culled 1- Poor Heat detection 2- Multiple services to conception 3- Cystic ovaries 4- Nutrition and energy balance 5- Other health problems Mastitis Accounting for between 5-20% of all cows culled Early lactation clinical cases Late lactation repeat cases Related to infertility Risk of culling is LOW if cow is PREGNANT Lameness Accounting for between 5-15% of all cows culled Under-represented in culling statistics Sole-ulcer/haemorrhage most common cull Related to infertility and on-farm mortality Risk of culling is LOW if cow is PREGNANT Do you agree with 3500 cost of cull?

5 Consider - Heifer replacement Cost of milk - Treatment - Pay to kill her - Extra labour (the is the most important and most undervalued cost in culls) Q. Should you be happy if replacement rate/ heifers coming on are maintaining numbers, generally? We have sold heifers at 21months (2% quota sold) 1730 sold once calved. A from Alistair- Situation dependant, if maintaining numbers to current level then yes, but ensure herd remains productive; expansion keep low to maintain cash flow. Baseline data from presentation, variable against low and high input. How to improve? Know where you are and where you are going. Good record keeping Good disease prevention Public image of dairying Good breeding Good information 12m of DEFRA money to SAC for GHG measuring in cows and sheep. Q from group- will GHG still be important when 7billion people now & predict 9billion 2050?! Food security/ land use/ feeding Q from group- why is agriculture getting so much press against carbon footprints when football teams/theatres etc have huge carbon footprints Conclusions: Public image ~ 100/cow profit Good records to get protocol to achieve 3. Neil Baker: Neil started his talk by making a very strong statement herd replacement issues could be solved if the industry got rid of all Johnes and lameness. Neil talked the group through his dairy unit and Rushywood, he was very honest with his figures and his faults, stating that each time his family had expanded their unit it had cost them dearly in performance, but by keeping records they are now able to better manage expansion, lessons have been learnt. Neil s aims Getting heifers to come back as a cow- 24mths but still having her in the herds at 2,3,4,5 yrs Key KPI s

6 Average daily milk yield per cow in herd Average dry matter intake per cow per day Number of confirmed pregnancies per month Number of cows culled within first 60 days of lactation % cows mobile Number of Mastitis cases per month Neil focused a lot of his talk on heifer calf management as he felt that how you managed your calves right from the moment they are born can play a massive part in how long they last in your herd. Colostrum, only ever feed the dam s milk to the calf, never keep any as he felt that freezing deteriorated the quality and as he was very concerned about Johnes he never cross fed. If no colostrom available or it was poor quality then they used Volac replacer. 9lts in 2 x 4.4lt feeds, this was to be fed as soon as possible from birth. Calves growth All calves weighed at birth given milk powder after colostrums then weaned and weighed again at 50 days old. If weighing then you must act on results, do not simply gather data and never review. Calves underperforming will be culled and not carried into the herd.

7 Conclusions The management committee had tried to compare their herd replacement rates to Neil s but when we used CIS data it was hard to get a clear picture as different farms used different recording system so the group have agreed to start recording these agreed KPI s monthly and we will review this meeting in 6mths and 12mths time Agreed KPI s Average Daily litres sold SCC + BSC s (taken from routine weekly milk sampling) Daily clinical cases of mastitis new cases & repeat cases % herd confirmed PD+ at fortnightly vet fertility visit (heifer & cows) Saleable and unsaleable cows & heifers leaving the farm stating reasons: fertility, feet, calving, ecoli, mastitis, misc, income from sold heifers Father, Robert Fleming has agreed from 1 st January 2012 to weigh all new born calves at birth for 3 weeks. In this time all new calves will continue colostrums management and be fed waste milk as per normal. These calves will again be weighed once they have been weaned at 10 weeks. From the 23 rd Jan a new protocol will be set in place. Calves again weighed at birth and weaning but colostrums will be tubed 3lts twice a day in the first 12 hours of birth. Then all heifer calves will be fed 900mgs powdered calf milk up until again 10 weeks were they will be weighed at weaning. The purpose of this is to see if the advice given my speaker Neil Baker and also international vet Sam Leadley who had been speaking at a DairyCo meeting in the area the week previous actually works. Robert will report findings at the meeting on 5 th April The group was also informed that a number on farm audits would be taking place over the next few weeks at Hillhead and the findings of these would come out at successive meetings. They are namely mastitis control, healthy feet and a buildings audit.