Why feed cows in late lactation

FEEDING YOUR LATE LACTATION SPRING CALVED COWS

What and how much you feed will be dependent on your cows yield, current and target calving BCS and current milk price.

Grass:

Hopefully you still have some grass in your cows’ diet, albeit with the last weeks rain housing is fast approaching. If your still grazing its imperative that you clean paddocks out during the last round while closing the farm with enough grass on-board to ensure you have grass next spring.

Manage BCS

A late lactation body condition score of your cows is vital in deciding what level of feed is required now and across the winter.

Do your cows need to gain condition score from here until Christmas or can they afford to

lose a bit of body condition?

Milking cows gain condition more efficiently than dry cows. If your cows need to gain some condition an extra spend on concentrates now, could save in the long term.

Do your cows need to gain some condition or are they ok?

To gain 1 unit of Body Condition Score requires 200 UFL.

Concentrate feeding to gain ¼ BCS

Maintaining Milk Lactose

Milk lactose is affected by stage of lactation and energy nutrition. Every effort must be taken to keep lactose percentages as high as possible now to prevent milk price deductions and forced early drying off.

Lactose levels of less than 4.45% affect your monthly balance score card, if your lactose levels are less than 4.2% it will affect both your balance score card and monthly base price. With the correct management these figures should be a long way off.

What do I do if lactose is low?

1. Dry off cows yielding less than 10 ltrs.
2. Feed your cows an appropriate level of concentrate based on how much if any grass your cows are grazing
3. Top up concentrates on wet days

For more information, contact your local Dairygold Area Sales Manager or Inside Sales on 022-31644