Are your cows on track to dry off in the right condition?

Body condition scoring of the herd should take place 6 weeks prior to dry off, and again at the point of dry-off.

Addressing BCS issues, whether over- or under-conditioned, have been shown to reduce the incidence of calving difficulties and metabolic problems next spring. Setting ourselves up for a successful, problem free spring should be the priority at this point in the year.

Late lactation is the optimum and most cost effective time to manipulate body condition, when compared to trying to change BCS while the cow is already dry. Best practise involves having cows in the optimum BCS at dry-off, and maintaining/holding BCS static over the dry period.

Where cows have a BCS < 3.0 currently, energy intake relative to output needs to increase. Ideally, consider early-dry off for this cohort of cows. Failure to replenish energy reserves will ultimately limit milk production during the next lactation.

If BCS exceeds 3.75, energy intakes are too high and should be reduced to avoid excessive fattening. Fat cows are four to nine times more prone to metabolic issues at calving. Batch cows over the dry period, according to BCS, where facilities allow. The aim being to have 90% of the herd in the “target” group.

Glanbia Ireland / Teagasc Open Source Future Farmer Jack Kearney talks Body condition scoring & dry cow management

Farming in Rathcormack, Co. Cork, Jack Kearney uses BCS as an indicator of where the herd are nutritionally throughout the year. “We last condition scored the cows in July, with the vast majority of the cows then ranging between 2.75-3.25,” said Jack.

Jack avoids over complicating the scoring process, “I don’t generally use exact scores, we use fat, thin or target cows as it takes the variability out of it, everyone knows what a fat cow or a thin cow looks like, “says the Cork farmer.

‘Going into the autumn we’ll pick out our thin cows and give them a longer dry period. They’ll get a chance to recuperate on good quality silage & have the chance to recover before their next lactation.’ ‘Thankfully this is only ever a handful of cows; we generally don’t have overly fat or thin cows. But we try to keep it as simple as possible,’ he added.

First Published on 24 November 2020