Dairy management: once-a-day milking

I was on a couple of large farms during the past week that have recently gone to once-a-day milking for the rest of the season.

Aidan Brennan

27 October 2016

The reasons are cows are doing long walks getting to the faraway paddocks, yield per cow is low anyway, and it’s the time of year when staff take more time off.

One of the farmers found that milk volume of his Jersey crossbred herd dropped by 10% when he went to once-a-day milking, but the value of the increase in fat and protein was worth 7% of the drop in volume, so the net reduction in the milk cheque was only 3%, plus it gave staff more time off.

You just need to watch lactose levels, which should be above 4.3%.

The power of once-a-day milking

Dairy management: lameness

Dairy management: drying off cows