Latest / The Muster on Hokonui / The Muster- Mitch Cooper: Dairy NZ

Transcript

The Muster- Mitch Cooper: Dairy NZ · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Can I help you, son? Sixpence a day and up
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: for fun. Welcome back to the muster.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Mitch Cooper of Dairy NZ joins us as we catch
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: up with the team on a weekly basis.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Good afternoon, Mitch.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: Welcome.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Look, we've had a hell of a spring down here
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: in Southland.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: We've had a bit of respite from the weather over
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: the past week or so, Mitch, but there's still a
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: lot of challenges that lay ahead.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, tough going. You know, one of the biggest issues, obviously, is,
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: you know, the sun's shining a little bit now and
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: things will hopefully start turning around pretty quickly when it
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: comes to feed. But, you know, I've had a good
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: period of time where it's been pretty challenging to feed
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: your cows to, you know, where you'd want to be
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: feeding them at this time of year. And unfortunately, that
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: ends up with a bit of a knock-on effect normally
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: on your mating period, I think, is where we see,
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of the big issues come up.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: flowing on from that.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: So this would be considered at the moment regarding mating?
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah absolutely and I think that's probably where a lot
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: of people were going to need to make the biggest
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: interventions you know whether or not it's milking frequency or
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: sort of disease risk and things like that there's so
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: much you know so much right on mating in the
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: calendar year and following a period of pretty rough weather
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: you often will see pretty poor repro seasons but there
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: are a few things you can sort of tweaks to
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: try and improve that.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I like that saying, the toolbox. It no longer applies
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: to the four-wheeler. It's about the top three inches being
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: applicable as well. So based on that, what's a couple
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: of things to point out?
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think, you know, it's worthwhile, I guess,
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: considering the cow as a whole, right? She's had a
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: period of negative energy balance, and what that normally leads
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: to is a bit of ketosis, where they can't sort
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: of quite proportion their energy in the right places. And
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: that normally increases disease. The biggest disease issues we see
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: following ketosis are usually endometritis or dirty cows, and it
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: can impact their ability to cycle. So I think one
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: of the big intervention things that people can do, and
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: obviously we're pretty close to mating, so sooner rather than later,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: is checking for dirty cows and treating quite early and
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: aggressively and making sure they've got that as well under
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: control as possible. But one of the big, big things
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: you can sort of manipulate at this time of year
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: to try and get some of the energy balance back
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: and swinging the right way is considering once a day
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: milking or sort of just generally reducing milking frequency, whether
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: that's three and two or whatever works for an individual farm.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: It can be a little bit challenging because you've probably
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: just had a period of reasonable mastitis conditions and whether
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: it doesn't make for You know, it doesn't make cell
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: counts easy to manage, but, you know, general consensus and
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: all the data shows us that once a day for
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: young cows and anything that's lost a bit of condition
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: or anything sort of higher risk through that mating period
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: can make a massive improvement in their repro success. You know,
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: much better reception rates, much better six-week and calf rates,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: much better submission rates. and often guys will find that
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: they can get those cows back up to twice a
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: day following mating, so it's sort of, you know, like
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: a short-term hit in a little bit of milk production,
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: but for hopefully quite a significant long-term gain. You know,
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: those are some of the, probably the big tools that
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: people can use as, you know, really sort of aggressive
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: match checking, really sort of considering what you want to
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: do with your milking frequency, as long as your cell
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: count allows it.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Mitch, what are your thoughts around boosting supplement levels in
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: the milking parlour at the moment?
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, not a bad idea. You know, again, when you're
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: struggling to feed cows in general, you often end up
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: with a bit less supplement going in. So worthwhile considering
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: boosting things up for a little bit and maybe checking
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: the cows, you know, getting some blood tests done and
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: just seeing sort of where your trace elements are sitting.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: You may find you probably need a little bit more
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: selenium than you otherwise would or a bit more B12
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: or cobalt than you otherwise would. at this time of
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: year when they've been sort of really battling through. So worthwhile,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: you know, checking a few things and getting on top
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: of a few things as early as you can. You know,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: the earlier you make these interventions, the better impact they have.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Mineral deficiencies, is that a realistic prospect at the moment?
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, could well be, yeah. There'll be, you know... lots
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: of challenges in that aspect. And obviously guys probably would
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: have had a heck of a time getting mag into
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: their cows and calcium for anything that sort of, you know,
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: really late calving or whatever you're having to give depending
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: on your calving mating dates. But yeah, you know... sort
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: of try not to teach people to suck eggs, but
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: it's very much about sort of being as aggressive in
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: that recovery as possible, as early as possible, makes such
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: a big difference in the coming months and for the
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: rest of the season.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: How are farmers dealing with the situation based on what
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: you're hearing there at Dairy NZ as such?
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: I think overall, you know, the mood, especially since the
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: sun's come out, the mood seems to be bouncing back
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: pretty well. You know, obviously there's been quite a few
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: guys that have been hit pretty hard, but what we
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: hear from the guys in the region is, I think,
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: overall pretty positive as far as how people are coping.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: You know, I think people are a little bit sort
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: of stressed and overworked, obviously, but as long as we
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: see a bit more sun, hopefully the you know, the
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: worst of it's behind us anyway.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: It's all about looking at the long term, I suppose,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: and making a plan?
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and that's why I sort of, I guess,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: beat the drum so hard about, you know, really focusing
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: on what you can do, you know, ASAP before mating,
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: because the flow and impacts of a poor mating period,
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: you know, you'll obviously have some issues issues with animal
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: health and milk production following a pretty weak period, but
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: the flow and impacts of a bad mating period is
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: so significant that it's really important to just say, right,
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: we've had this happen, what can we do to make
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: mating as successful as possible? Do we need to really
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: aggressively get on top of our non-cycling cows? Do we
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: need to consider once a day? Do we need to
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: look at some of our animal health things and really
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: get on top of our trace elements and all these
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: sorts of things?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot there to put into perspective, Mitch. Thanks
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: for your time.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no worries.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Mitch Cooper out of Dairy NZ with some tools. For
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: the toolbox as such, the top three inches. Before we
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: wrap up, Leo Pecker, you're listening to The Muster.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: MUSIC