4/11/2013. Why Won t They Listen?! Walter M. Guterbock, DVM, MS Columbia River Dairy Boardman, OR

Transcription

1 3 Why Won t They Listen?! Walter M. Guterbock, DVM, MS Columbia River Dairy Boardman, OR 1

2 Only the Cows Produce Income; Everything else is an expense! Cows need to be the priority in daily activities! Get em milked, bred and fed. Let them lie down! Cow comfort. Maintain the routine. Gentle handling. Prompt attention to cows in trouble. Only Milk Pays the Bills! Ultimately, your recommendations have to translate into more milk (or lower cost). Every salesman that comes to call promises more milk or reduced cost. Things with long-term payoffs are harder to justify than short-term rewards. A $ today is worth more than a $ in the future. A Successful Day on the Dairy Cows were fed on time. Cows were milked on time. Cows got bred. Milk was cold. No antibiotics in milk. No manure got spilled. No one got hurt. Need to Sweat the Details In order to excel, you have to do more than the basics! Transition management. Good reproduction. Mastitis prevention. Milk quality. Calf raising. Cow grouping. Feeding management. Cow comfort. 2

3 There s a Lot More to Running a Dairy Than Managing Cows Complex business based on complex biological systems. Materials handling. Employee management. Management of capital and cash. General administrative tasks. Maintenance and repairs. Cow care must be delegated. Reproductive exams are only a blip on the calendar 3

4 Benefits and Risks of Repro Work Repro is still critically important. Gets you on the farm regularly. Opportunity to observe many things. Limited liability, pays well. As dairies get bigger, your input will be at a lower level. As dairies get bigger, it becomes a confining, physically demanding chore. It s a commodity. If they only see you with a sleeve on, don t be surprised if they think of you as a palpator! Vet s status is affected by farm size. 40 cows. 400 cows cows. As herds get bigger, small problems look bigger. Everyone becomes more specialized (and better at their job). The cases we brag about generally have poor outcomes Difficult OB. Rotten fetotomy. RDA torsion. Nature of LDAs has changed; many do poorly. Benefit is to at most one cow, and is lost if animal leaves the herd. We Tend to Focus on the Losers! We need to concentrate on making life better for the productive animals. We vets tend to focus on the exceptions and the failures. Culling is a powerful management tool! But you can t cull your way out of a problem. Individual animal interventions only save that animal. Herd level interventions help all animals. Focus on the productive animals, not the losers! Interventions that help many animals help make the businesss more profitable. 4

5 Veterinary emergencies aren t really emergencies Clients still want good emergency service! Employees need to show that they have done all they could. Feel sorry for the animal. Want the situation handled by a pro so they can get their other work done. Just because they know how, doesn t mean they re the best person to do it. On large dairies, nonvets will do what vets used to do. We need to stop mourning the loss of traditional tasks. We need to teach people to do it right. We need to develop systems and protocols. We need to monitor performance. We need to find new ways to train young vets to perform these tasks. Rolling Herd Average Doesn t Pay the Bills! The last cows you add make the money. Per cow averages are not very informative. Momentum and bias. Many dairy stats are not normally distributed (DIM, DOPN) 5

6 Find the underperforming cows! Low producers in early lactation. Dry period too long or too short. Heifers not bred on time. Cows not bred by 100 DIM. High SCC. Vet needs to devise systems to detect, treat, and prevent underperformers. Quality Control of Feeding is More Important than the Ration! Accounting for dry matter changes. Mixing order and timing. Quality control over ingredients. Reducing shrink. Accuracy of mixing and delivery. Removing black layer silage. Silage stack management. Producers Function in a Risky Environment No control over price of product or main inputs. Complex biological system subject to seasonal and annual variations. Must make decisions using incomplete information. Recommendations must take risk into account! Recommendation may not address the main bottleneck Vets are trained to be riskaverse Only commit to dx when certain. Consider all possibilities. Tend to complicate problems and programs. Trained to default to the germ theory. Concerned about liability. Limits of the Medical Model Overtrained in germ theory. Overtrained in individual animal care. Undertrained in nutrition. Undertrained in epidemiology and stats. Aversion to risk. Pretensions to infallibility. 6

7 Limits of the Medical Model (2) We tend to focus on the abnormal! Top priority should be to help the normal, productive animals!!! The Real Art of Practice Honestly evaluating the bottlenecks on each farm. Knowing the science. Applying the science to the situation. Helping the client execute the changes. Honestly evaluating the results. It s a lot easier to give advice than to take it! Consultants should make life easier, not harder! The Two-Minute Consultant Some of your dry cows are too fat. Some of your dry cows are too thin. The cows are sorting the feed. Your SCC should be lower. The teat ends aren t clean enough. You should improve heat detection. You need more fans and water troughs. There s too much grain in the manure. The Two-Minute Consultant Use more sand. Raise the neck rail. Lower the neck rail. You have too many lame cows. Your cows have acidosis (Johnes, BVD, foot warts... ). 7

8 Recommendations Should Be as specific as possible. Include a plan for implementation, suggest sources of materials. Address a current concern of the producer. Include an assessment of risk vs. reward. Include references to satisfied users. Examples Complicated Johne s (BVD, etc.) program. Improve colostrum program. Put more bedding in the stalls. Get more feed in front of the closeups. Relieve overcrowding in closeup pen. Use sand bedding. The bigger the dairy, the simpler the systems need to be! More people are involved in every procedure. They all need to be trained and monitored. Multiple supervisors. Consistency is harder to monitor. Procedural drift is harder to catch. Small errors can have big consequences. Why Didn t They Listen? Your observation may be wrong. Your recommendation may not address a current concern. Plan may be too complicated. Other activities of higher priority. Can t figure out how to get it done. Couldn t sell it to the employees. Someone else advised against it. The health and well-being of dairy animals result from what people do! The aim of the adviser should be to increase wellbeing, health, and productivity. 8

9 This means we must change human behavior to help the cows!! Focus on the processes, not the results! If the process is right, the results will follow PEOPLE are the most valuable asset on the farm! 9

10 How to get extraordinary results from ordinary people and ordinary cows. The Vet as a Coach Local vs. consultant Brings benefit of specialized knowledge and broad experience. Effective problem solver. Helps people on the dairy perform better. Develops procedures. Brings new ideas and technology. Knows management. Knows local conditions. Can visit often. Can follow up. Limited knowledge outside area. Visits only occasionally. Less familiar with area. Distance lends credibility. Has trouble following up. Gets around more. 10

11 How do I get paid for knowledge? By the job?? By the hour/day/month? As part of a regular program: repro, nutrition, milk quality? Through product sales? Salary/retainer? Piece of the action? Services with a limited future Emergency work. Individual animal care. Traditional product sales with high markup. Rectal palpation. Services with Growth Potential Employee training. Quality assurance on the farm. Nutrition and feeding management. Environmental management. Regulatory liaison. Milk quality work. Records analysis and reporting Services with Growth Potential Clinical epidemiology Training middle management. Clinical research for third parties. Clinical research for on-farm use. Technology management. Inventory management. Liaison with specialists and consultants. Yes, it is REAL Medicine Production medicine IS a concern for animal welfare. Healthy, happy animals resist most pathogens. Same process applied to group as to individual animal in traditional medicine. Vets are the most trusted advisers. Vets have the broadest understanding of the whole system. If veterinarians don t provide these services, someone else will!! 11

12 THANK YOU!! 12