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CLOVER CE L L CHECK
WORKING
TOGETHER
FOR A HEALTHIER FUTURE...
Veterinary Surgeon
David Black
XLVets Practice
Paragon Veterinary
Group, Carlisle
Clover Cell Check Service
A bigger milk cheque thanks to lower cell counts
using the Clover Cell Check service
C
umbrian dairy farmers David Lyall, and his sons Martyn and Stephen,
are getting an extra £500/month for their milk after signing onto the
Clover Cell Check service with their vet David Black of Paragon Vets.
Within a year, bulk milk cell counts were taken from around 250,000
SCC/ml to less than 200,000, enabling them to receive an extra 0.2p
per litre for their milk.
At North Scales farm near Brampton, the
Lyalls are milking 280 cows and maintaining
average yields of 10,000 litres/cow. Their
bulk milk cell count is now around the 100
-155,000 mark. But it didn't used to be.
Three years ago, bulk milk cell count would
vary from 200,000 to 250,000 SCC/ml.
In an effort to improve the quality of the milk
and benefit from a higher price for it, their
vet David Black recommended the Clover
Cell Check service.
David explains: ‘Clover Cell Check is an
early warning system for mastitis infections
across the herd and for individual cows.
‘The whole system is based on stopping cows
getting onto the escalator to high cell counts,
and catching them early when their individual
milk cell count is starting to edge up from the
200,000 mark.
‘It's really important to stop cows becoming
cell count 'millionaires', because once a cow
has had clinical mastitis, the damage can be
irreversible. Her cell count is likely to always
be higher and her full yield potential may
never be reached. She is also more likely
to get mastitis again.
‘The Lyalls have very few involuntary culls
and have been building up cow numbers,
and consequently the herd has a lot of
older cows, so this progamme has been
especially beneficial.’
David explains: ‘Each month, the individual
cow cell count readings from the monthly
milk recording visit are automatically pulled
off into the Cell Check programme, and an
outline report is sent to me. I then interpret
the findings, based on my knowledge of
the farm and the cows, and produce a
final report.’
David makes routine fortnightly visits to the
farm and each month he uses some of this
time to go through the Cell Check results
with Martyn Lyall.
Martyn had been having 6-weekly milk
recordings but was persuaded to have
monthly recordings as the programme works
best with these. He has adopted the practice
of 'factoring' and although this affects the
results slightly (evening milkings always have
more concentrated cell counts) the data is
no less valuable and the Cell Check service
can still be used in these cases.
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