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WI SCONS IN TOUR
WORKING
TOGETHER
FOR A HEALTHIER FUTURE...
11
LIVESTOCK MATTERS
Wisconsin
W
hy do some farmers make a great success of dairy herd expansion
while others hit the buffers working harder, with more money invested
yet feeling under more pressure and making less profit
?
With a
number of our clients facing this challenge we put together a study tour to visit
Wisconsin USA with support from LandSkills.
Veterinary Surgeon
Phil Alcock
XLVets Practice
Bishopton Veterinary
Group
PH I L A L COCK ,
B I S HOP TON V E T E R I NARY GROUP
study tour
Sand cubicle shed
Clean cows
Sand settlement lane separation system
We chose Wisconsn because of the density
of farms that had been through this process.
Our aim was to see what common factors lay
behind sustainable growth on these farms,
learning about their successes and failures.
We toured nine great farms ranging in
size from 300 to 2,900 cows as well as
squeezing in a visit at the Wisconsin
veterinary school.
What were the features
that stood out?
l
Staff structure
There was no ambiguity about the roles and
responsibilities of everyone working on these
farms. It would be impossible for the herd
owners to micro-manage the staff so instead
herdsmen fulfilled middle manager roles where
they had responsibility for outcomes monitored
by the boss. This clarity meant accountability.
Clear job definitions also reduced stress on
employees who knew exactly what was
expected of them rather than having to cope
with fluctuating or vague demands and
avoided the scenario where when everyone
is responsible sometimes no-one is.
l
Cow comfort
Deep sand cubicles were a common factor
on most of the herds we visited. The general
opinion of the farmers who had made the
change to sand was that their cows were
longer-lived; this altered the nature of culling
in their herds away from culling lame and
casualty cows towards culling for mastitis,
fertility and yield.
This resulted in herds running at lower days in
milk with big mature cows reaching their full
potential. Cow cleanliness was striking as
were the effects on udder health, a 2,500
cow herd that we visited had only two cows
out of the tank with mastitis on the day of our
visit. Whether cows will give more milk on
sand beds is debatable and probably
depends on what the limiting factor is in any
given herd. In well designed mattress housing,
factors such as nutrition and genetics are more
likely to limit production in the UK. There were
good herds achieving outstanding results on
mattress based systems, but they had to work
very hard to maintain cow comfort compared
with the sand herds.