Getting the measure of dairy herds
There is a saying that if you can’t measure, you can’t manage.
This is very true and when it comes to dairy herds milk recording is a simple efficient service to measure and manage the profitability and health of each individual cow and the overall herd.
Milk recording enables routine testing to take place of all individual in-milk cows for butterfat, protein, cell count, urea, lactose and yields. The data identifies whether the animal is making a positive or negative difference to herd performance. In addition assessing disease through milk samples offers an efficient and non-invasive way of checking herd health status and enabling dairy farmers to track and monitor disease spread.
Here are a few top reasons why you should milk record – to increase the profitability of your herd, that is, increase fats, proteins, lower cell counts; improve on calving interval; identify fertility areas of concern; benchmark your herd and track performance against regional and national data; meet legislation with linked movement book and medicine records; and track herd health, and monitor disease prevalence.
The whole management team, including farmer, herdsman, vet, analysts and consultants ,can have access to the same information and at the same time to make informed decisions
Bernadette Crayston, Cattle Information Service
