With calving getting underway shortly or starting in the coming days, cow identification is going to be vital to ensure that mistake are not made.
A lot of cows calving in a short space of time can be a recipe for disaster, if a plan is not put in place early on.
Calving season means that there are going to be three groups of cows on your farm – dry cows, freshly calved cows and those entering the bulk tank.
Ensuring that cows who transition between the groups are clearly identifiable is vital, to ensure that mistakes do not occur.
Cow identification
Spring is a busy time on farms with cows calving and the increased workload that brings, which in turn brings an increased chance of mistakes being made, i.e., antibiotics entering the bulk tanks on farms.
These could be attributed to increased working hours, tiredness and poor identification.
A mistake like this, which is not caught before the lorry comes for collection, can be a major headache to deal with.
In order to help avoid mistakes like this, a plan to clearly identify cows whose milk cannot enter the bulk tank should be put in place on every dairy farm.
The largest group for at least the first few weeks, and possible longer depending on the compactness of your calving season, will be the dry cows or those still waiting to calf.
These dry cows are heavily in calf and should be kept separate to the other groups on the farm.
If possible, they should be marked is some way, such as tape on the tail to ensure that they are clearly identifiable.
This ensures that if one these was to get into the milking herd by mistake, they could be easily identified.
Milking herd
Within the milking herd you are also going to have cows that can and cannot enter the bulk tank, these cows also need to be clearly marked.
Some of the newer milking parlours have systems in place that allow for milk to be diverted, but many farmers are not milking in these parlours.
Again tape on the tail or bands around the legs, or both, are good ways of ensuring that these cows are clearly marked.
A board at the top of the parlour can be used to track dates as to went cows calved and when they can enter the tank.
During the Teagasc National Dairy Conference, John Whelan a dairy farmer from Co. Wexford outlined his method of tracking freshly-calved cows.
Whelan uses seven different coloured bands to identify when cows have calved, and when they are due to enter the tank.
He and his farm staff use a WhatsApp group to track and monitor daily tasks on the farm.
Whatever method you use it needs to be simple, but effective to ensure cows are not entering the tank that should not be entering it.
Two milking herds
Operating two milking herds is probably going to be the best method of preventing mistakes.
To operate this system, you have a herd that is entering the bulk tank and a herd where the milk is still be held.
Cows within the ‘fresh herd’ still need to be clearly marked and moved into the main milking herd once they are able to enter the bulk tank.
This can create a little extra work, but in many cases it does make the process much easier to manage and ensure that mistakes do not occur.
In this situation you would milk the bulk tank herd first, then the fresh herd – but ensure that the pipe has be removed from the tank and the milk is being collected by another method.