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APRIL 2002 |
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The care and attention Liane once lavished on her three children is now applied to her dairy cows. They have responded with a rolling herd average of 32,452 pounds of milk, 1,146 pounds of butterfat, and 946 pounds of protein, making them the second highest-producing dairy herd in the state of Iowa. Take Care Of Basics Liane’s hard work along with her commitment to basic cow comfort and nutrition is proof that top production is possible without fancy facilities or high-tech management. Her dairy barn on the family farm near Monona, Iowa, is an older stanchion barn which she and Larry took over 25 years ago. It was remodeled in the 1970s and updated with tie stalls. “I’ve always tried to make our dairy the best it could be with the things we already had,” she said. “I’ve looked for little ways to improve. “Keeping cows healthy, right from the time they’re babies (plays an important role in good production),” she said. She looks for the practical and affordable ways to improve herd health. That usually starts right where the cows live. To prevent disease before it gets started, she tries to keep both cows and facilities as clean as possible. In the dairy barn stalls, where the cows spend most of their time in the winter, she uses wood shavings on top of their individual mattresses. The shavings soak up moisture that could lead to health problems from repeated contact with their udders and legs. In summer, her cows are in an outdoor feeding area or an eight-acre pasture much of the time. She scrapes the cement lot in the feeding area every day so her cows will always have a dry and clean loafing area and never have to lie in manure. Personal Touch
She feeds a corn-based ration to her cows three times a day, depending on the weather. No BST is used. Dry alfalfa hay is fed in the barn during the winter. In summer hay is fed both inside and outside. “I like to keep the feed as fresh as possible,” she said. Obvious, and therefore easily overlooked, is the maintenance of milking equipment to help prevent mastitis. Liane makes sure hers is always in top working order. Her milking system is checked out monthly by the dealer who also performs a thorough yearly maintenance checkup on the milkers. Preventing Injuries Two-inch mattresses made from shredded rubber provide soft beds for cows in the barn. At $95-per-cow, the cost of the mattresses is well worth the investment, she said. In the past, cows lying down in the barn sometimes injured hocks and udders while getting up, even when the cement platform was covered by the older-style mats made from one-inch deep hard rubber. The softer mattresses have nearly elminated injuries, she said.
Maintenance Pays Off When putting up haylage, she lets the swathed crop dry down to 65 percent moisture. “When it’s ready to chop, we usually go like crazy, trying to get it done as fast as we can while it’s at the right moisture level,” she said. “That’s when it’s really important not to have machinery breakdowns. I’m particular about keeping equipment in shape. Maintenance is important when it comes to both cows and equipment.” Liane’s husband helps out when she has more field work than she can handle alone. Larry’s construction crew is sometimes recruited to do a bit of farm work such as unloading square bales into the barn.
Harvested in big round bales, the alfalfa-oats hay makes feed the cattle really like and seem to thrive on. Liane believes the green oat crop is particularly beneficial as a forage because of the additional fiber it adds to the cattle’s diet. It yields about three big, round bales per acre. She feeds these exclusively to cows in milk. With calves and dry cows, her herd numbers about 100 head. Another way Liane has improved production in her dairy herd over the years has been to choose top-quality herd sires for artificial insemination. “I have never really cared what my breeding costs were,” she said. “I have always wanted to make that heifer calf that I’m trying to develop be the best that it can be.” Getting top production from her cows helps Liane’s operation to stay economically viable even though her herd is small. Feed and vet bills, she reasons, remain the same whether her cows average 24,000 or 32,000 pounds a year.
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