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Managing Dry Cow Body Condition

One of the major challenges for dairy farmers from October until cows calve down is to manage the body condition score. In the case of quota restrictions, many cows will be dried off early and have a long dry period. Where a close eye is not kept on feeding and body condition, cows, especially the later calving ones are likely to get fat. All farmers know that fat cows are more problematic at calving. There is increased risk of calving difficulty and increased incidence of metabolic diseases such as milk fever, ketosis, fatty liver, displaced stomach etc. There are a number of factors which will feed into this:

• On many farms cows lose a lot of body condition in late lactation. However if cows are dried off from early October onwards body condition will be much better at time of drying off.
• In a typical 6-8 week dry period there is a significant foetal demand. This reduces the ability of the cow to gain bodyweight during the dry period. Feed intake in the last three weeks before calving falls. So in a 6-8 week dry period potential for significant body condition gain is limited. Over a long dry period more of the feed is available resulting in the cow getting fat after she is dried off.

It is important to test silage both for minerals and feed value in order to make the correct decision on diets.

Management of body condition over a long period will be difficult on many farms. To stop cows getting too fat, feed intake should be controlled. To manage this satisfactorily all cows need to be able to eat simultaneously. This is not achievable on many farms. Where space is limited intake in younger and shy animals will be effected with the stronger animals getting fatter.

What can we do? There are a number of strategies which can be put in place to achieve this. The key to success is to monitor the condition of your cows and to alter feeding program accordingly. The following or a combination of the following can be considered.

The cows can be split into two groups as follows

• Cows which are going to calve within 6-8 weeks, these will have a higher demand for energy to meet requirements and a lower intake potential (see Table below).
• Cows which will not calve within 8 weeks. This group have low maintenance requirements and at the same time good intake potential (see Table below). Looking at the table it is easy to see why dry cows in the 6th and 7th month of pregnancy can rapidly increase body condition.

A number of strategies can be put in place to manage the two groups of animals

• Where a diet feeder is available straw can be used to dilute the energy level and reduce feed intake. Because you are weighing the feed and will be able to calculate daily feed intake it will be relatively easy to adjust requirements to meet daily energy intake.
• Where a diet feeder is not available feed restriction needs to be carefully managed. The typical scenario where feed restriction is not well managed is, cows are under fed and become thin.
• Where all cows can eat together simply restrict feed.
• Restrict the time the cows are allowed access to feed to get desired intake.

Cows may have to be moved from one group to another according to body condition. However care should be exercised when doing this to avoid bullying and injuries occurring. Never limit silage to cows as the get close to calving. Poor intakes in the last month before calving will increase risk of problems around calving.

If feed is being restricted to cows it is essential that parasites are treated promptly at drying, there are no underlying diseases or trace element deficiencies. Any of these will manifest themselves in a more significant way where nutrition to the cow is reduced.

Calculating silage intake

Where weighing facilities are not available calculation of intake can be difficult. The following can give a rough indication

• Feed silage ad-lib and calculate intake. When intake is calculated cut feed by an appropriate level. For example, if you are feeding 20 blocks per week and you want to adjust intake by 20 % feed 4 blocks less.
• Calculate the volume of a silage block in cubic feed and divide by 50 to give you the quantity in tonnes.

The above calculation is only a rough guide and carefully monitoring of body condition will be required.