DAIRY 101 WINTERING ALTERNATIVES
No more making mud Story and photos by: Karen Trebilcock
A
bout now you will be thinking about wintering for next year. Yes, it’s about 10 months away but that’s how long it takes to grow a crop of fodder beet. With proposed government regulations not kicking in now until May, which means it will be another winter before they take effect, it’s business as usual but that doesn’t mean that making mud should be what you want for your farm and your cows once again. Besides the fact that no one looks forward to shifting cows on crop in mud, or seeing their animals covered in the stuff, or that it can be hellish trying to get that paddock back into grass some time before Christmas, there are a few other reasons why mud should be avoided. Of course the main one is cows in mud lose more body condition than if they
86
Making mud: something to be avoided, but something that takes planning and strategy to avoid, especially in the more southern provinces.
Below: Stand off pads can be used with on/off grazing.
aren’t in mud. And studies overseas show the more mud they’re in (dew claw to belly deep), the more body condition they will lose. Which means you have to feed them more for them to regain that body condition. However, cows in mud don’t eat as much. They have depressed intakes. Maybe because they are depressed so it is hard to get that body condition back in time for calving. They also have more cases of lameness, making them sore and depressed. And they don’t like lying down in mud, so they don’t sleep, so that makes them tired, sore and depressed. And stressed because that mud clinging to them is cold. And any animal (including us) which is stressed, tired, sore and depressed has a lower white blood cell count (which studies have proven cows on mud have), so they are more likely to get sick from bugs like mastitis. Knowing all of that, do we really need government regulations to stop us having our cows in mud? But we still need to feed them and when the grass doesn’t grow for 120 days, and the rain doesn’t let up and cows still haven’t grown wings, there have to be alternatives to pasture feeding which is why feeding cows on crop during winter is how many of us spend the off season. By growing crop – kale, swedes or fodder beet – we can grow large tonnages per hectare of high-carbohydrate feed and supplement it with balage, hay or straw. It leaves the rest of the farm green and in grass ready for the milking season to start once more. But it means cows in mud and that’s what we all want to avoid. A few smart people have been trialling alternatives and Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2021
