I�ve helped 200 farmers in New Zealand by getting pastures analysed and
fertilising accordingly and getting them to feed the soluble mineral mix
Solminix through a dispenser. In all cases, when they did what I said,
conception rates improved, bloat decreased or disappeared, animal health
improved and profit increased. I can only remember three who failed, because
they continued with their old �establishment� ideas with statements like,
�Soil tests are good enough� and �Mineral supplements are not necessary�.
One improved to get only one cow (same one) out of 600 get milk fever each
year. Some will be interested to know that two people run that farm and one
milks the 600 cows in a rotary in the morning and the other milks in the
afternoon. The other person brings the three herds in and feeds the calves,
etc.
Clients were able to limit CIDRs to very few cows.
In many case the farmers� health improved because their herd quietened down,
eczema and other feeding related problems improved so the farmer was less
stressed when milking hundreds of cows and running the farm on their own.
One client who had such severe bloat that his farm was a Ruakura Animal
Research Centre �bloat research� farm had bloat disappear completely. He
then had nightmares that bloat had returned.
When using lime and proper fertilisers based on the farm�s pasture analysis,
not on an antiquated standard for the area or soil tests, no potash was
necessary for decades and yet DM production increased with soil, pasture and
animal health. Drenching for internal parasites almost disappears.
I believe that the use of Ruakura developed CIDR�s is a sign of a problem
that can be fixed at the source by fixing the problem, not treating the
symptom.
The best ever farmer I consulted for gets 80% inseminated in first 3 weeks
with only 17 out of 120 return.
Many have said that they didn�t realise that dairy farming (even if one is
milking hundreds of cows) could be so easy and enjoyable.
One of the things I�ve never been able to eliminate completely is scours
when hundreds of calves are reared within a few months. Possible causes of
the spread are sparrows coming and going from concentrates and water to
scour-dung and back, and farm dogs licking dung and then concentrates or
water. The dog can be prevented, but sparrows are not easy.
Someone on graze-l rightly wrote that we can all learn from each other.
I�ve written the following before, but newcomers might appreciate it.
In the early 80s when I was going to North America two or three times a year
and visiting dozens of farms talking controlled grazing and demonstrating
Gallagher high power fencing, I noticed that your cows didn�t show mineral
deficiency symptoms like ours did until a few of you grazed without
concentrates. It was not the grain part of the concentrates, but the mineral
additives that made the difference. On our dry-stock (160 bull calves reared
for USA McDonalds) each year and dry cows grazed) farm between 1984 and 1987
I developed Solminix, a soluble mineral mix, by feeding it through a tank
type dispenser adjusting the mineral levels until the animals were in
perfect health. Lick blocks and loose licks didn�t help much.
Those of you who see thin shaggy cows here can be assured that they are not
feeding Solminix which gives them a sheen and makes them look fatter.
Incidentally North American formulae for minerals is rightly based on the
right amount per animal each day. Tank dispensers do this because the amount
required each day is added each day so mineral consumption is not affected
by rain and heat.
On 21/5/06 12:32 AM, "William Burgess"
<williamburgess@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Guys
>
> On our farm in NZ we use CIDRs after 3-6 weeks of AI. We find that a
> lot of the cows that would normally be treated if we did this before
> AI would naturally come into heat themselves a bit later. So by doing
> this we have drastically decreased the number of cows needing CIDRs.
> The cows that we do CIDR we find are the often the worst case ones and
> will often get in-calf late and need inducing if we chose to keep them
> the next year. They can get into a continuous cycle of needing CIDRs
> and Inducing if not cullled. Sometimes the cows that need CIDRs are
> ones that had a tough time at calving, e.g. got sick etc, and the
> following years they get back to their usual selves cycling well in
> advance of AB, so CIDR use on these cows is just a booster to get them
> back on the right track and give them a chance to stay in the herd the
> next year.
>
> CIDRs helped us a bit when we were trying to grow our herd numbers
> after buying another property when we were short on cows and
> replacements. Now that we have more than enough cows and
> replacements, we barely use them at all, and if we do, we keep track
> of those cows closely and cull any that show more signs of bad
> fertility.
>
> On a different topic, we used some Dutch Holstein semen about 10 years
> ago from the Holland Genetics division of LIC at that time. His name
> was Etazon Griffith if any of you are interested. Now 10 years later
> after looking back there are a few similar observations between his
> daughters against our crossbred herd. 1/ Hardly any of them ever
> calved to AB over their lifetime. 2/ A lot of them needed inducing
> year after year. 3/ They were the biggest cows in our herd by far!!!
> 4/ They often did the top literage production in our herd (but they
> were also out of some of our best cows at that time). 5/ They were a
> bit more prone to lameness. 6/ They lasted in our herd for a while,
> mainly due to their high production, provided they got in calf early
> enough. We have one 10 year old left now in our herd which has ~10%
> cows over 10 years old.
>
> Michelle.
>
Best wishes,
Vaughan Jones
Hamilton
New Zealand
