Saturday, March 30, 2024

Measuring to manage feed options

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A previous Federated Farmers president once memorably said at a vet conference the male members of the general public wanted their cows at body condition score (BCS) 5 and their wives at BCS 2.5. It’s a comment I’ve repeated often.
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But that was a few years ago. In those days condition scoring cows was not often carried out, and when it was it usually generated heated debate at discussion groups and between consultants. Certainly condition scoring large mobs of cows routinely was unusual and tracking BCS across a season almost unheard of.

Things move on and anyone mentioning wives and condition score in the same sentence would face trial by Twitter and could expect to make a Jeremy Clarkson-style apology within days. And of course, any discussion about human condition score would need to include bulls as well as cows, to be politically correct. More importantly, finding anybody in the New Zealand population under BCS 8 would now be a significant undertaking.

The dairy industry has also moved on; refining the process of condition scoring away from the mystic dark art form it once was and developing some pretty good measurable standards of both scoring and repetition. Vets and consultants can now be accredited and their objectivity assessed routinely.

As more consistent measurement standards develop and produce more data the dairy industry can better benchmark where it is now and where it should be. Cows are scored more often and by more consistent scorers. Repeatable time intervals are used, reporting is better and everyone is beginning to understand the complexities, and the value, of the process.

There are now some good rules of thumb for key targets at key times. We know that cows should be about BCS 5 at calving and heifers BCS 5.5. To achieve this, cows will need to be dried off at BCS 5, and heifers need to be monitored to manage growth rates and achieve targets. To dry off cows at BCS 5 we need to manage autumn feeding, and maybe milking, and to do that we need to condition score in time to be able to make a difference before drying off.

We know that cows can’t afford to lose too much weight after calving. We used to aim for BCS 4 at mating but recent work is suggesting that BCS 4.5 is better. A target of no more than 20% of cows below this goal is generally achievable if we aim for BCS 4 at mating, but our experience suggests that if we aim for BCS 4.5 then about half of cows will fall below that.

Weight loss after calving is critically important – it will happen, but too much will have an impact on virtually all health and reproductive outcomes. However, having cows in good condition at calving is no guarantee of minimising weight loss. Better-transitioned cows should milk more and will in fact need better management to keep condition on. 

In the human population, sugar is the new tobacco. Feeding your children sugars or simple carbohydrates is socially taboo. The reason for this is the understanding that it hasn’t been dairy products or meat that have been killing our population over recent years, but bread, fizzy drinks and (ha) muesli bars.

But cows are not humans. For a start they have four stomachs. While some humans may look like they have more than one, this is an illusion. So we can’t just poke sugar into cows and hope for the best. It’s good for veterinary business and the pet food industry but not much else.

Now that we are better at measuring BCS, we will be able to better feed cows. While requiring more feed options and better knowledge this is already happening. Scoring cows regularly and reliably allows farmers to better manage feeding and feed regimes.

Perhaps more importantly, regular condition scoring of cows is demonstrating to the general public that we do monitor our herds, we do care and we do strive to improve their condition.

I would strongly argue we are better at looking after the nutrition of our cows than we are of our kids. But I’ll leave that soundbite to brave federation leaders and the twittersphere.

Dr Mark Bryan, a director and practising vet at VetSouth in Southland, contributes a Vet’s Voice column every two months.

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