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A System For The Modern Dairy Cow

Department of Primary Industries (DPI) is running two Extended Lactation (EL) forums entitled A System for the Modern Cow at DPI Ellinbank on Monday, May 25, 2009 and DPI Maffra on Tuesday, May 26 from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm.

By Department of Primary Industries - 14th May 2009 - Back to News

EL is any lactation cycle longer than 300 days which has been the traditional length of most dairy cow lactations.

Many dairy farms have now come to the point where the ‘traditional’ system may not suit the cow. It has also been established that the modern dairy cow is able to milk well beyond 300 days which leads to the question of why should a cow have to calve every 12 months?

The EL system offers a variety of options for farmers such as:

• Delayed mating of late cows to tighten a seasonal calving pattern;
• Cows can be mated cows as they present or carried over if they do not present;
• Two year heifer lactations can help to retain the majority of first calvers in a seasonal herd;
• 18 month lactations over entire split calving herd;
• Selection of high producing cows eg the top 50 per cent; and
• No cow mated within 100 days of calving in year round system.

The interactive forums will focus on the findings from the EL research project funded by DPI and Gardiner Foundation, opportunities and concerns relating to EL, the effect of EL on production and economics, and farmer experiences.

For more information, please contact Ashleigh Michael at DPI Leongatha on 5662 9901.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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