David Brady, one of the project farmers from Co Cavan, had a total herd health cost of €5,710 in 2016. This equates to 1.25c/l for David and, if we base the cost on total livestock units on the farm, it is €50 per livestock unit. This cost includes all medicine and veterinary use. An itemised breakdown of the total farm health cost is in Figure 1.

Within the Dairylink group, financial analysis for each herd during 2016 highlighted significant variation in herd health costs, ranging from 0.7p/l to 1.50p/l on the highest-cost farm.

While there is no direct relationship on project farms with herd health cost and mortality or culling rates, we have decided to break down these health costs in an attempt to simplify and explain the overall herd health cost on each of the project farms.

David vaccinates for BVD and leptospirosis. The vaccine element for David represents 15% of herd health costs and includes the blackleg vaccine to young stock.

Worm and fluke treatment equates to 25% of the herd health bill. This includes wormer and fluke treatments for beef stock on the farm.

For 2016, David used Eprizero on milking cows during the summer and Endofluke and Bimectin wormer on stock at housing time. A mineral bolus was used on the herd in 2016 at a cost of €5/cow.

Hoof care only includes copper sulphate used in the footbath; no hoof-paring cost is included. The health costs include two TB testing sessions; one at the start of 2016 and another at the end.

There is very low incidence of mastitis in milking cows on this farm. Therefore, milking cow treatment is a small proportion of herd health costs.

Dry cow treatment on the farm includes teat sealer for all cows in the herd. Low-SCC cows (less than 70,000 SCC) do not receive an antibiotic dry cow tube when drying off. Average SCC for the herd during 2016 was 112,000.

In 2016, David had 22 cows leave the farm. Of these, 18 were cull cows and there was one culled heifer. Three cows died during 2016, so the mortality rate was 3.6% and the culling rate was 21.9%. The herd is expanding, with more heifers coming into the herd each year than cows leaving.

Figure 2 highlights the various reasons for cows leaving the farm, with the key reason for culling cows being infertility or cows falling out of the compact calving profile David is aiming for.

The other reasons for culling on the farm is cows with milking issues, such as slow milk let-down, udder and teat placement issues, and temperament in the parlour.

On the farm: David Brady Stradone, Co Cavan

Calving started on the farm on 7 February and 70% of the herd is now calved, with only one more cow due to calve with a black and white calf. The remaining cows to calve will calf to Angus from now on.

Calving has been going well, with very few cows needing assistance so far. I have 25 heifer calves on the ground, which should be enough to allow for herd expansion of 5% in 2019.

Colostrum is pooled and stomach tubed into calves within two hours of calving. Calves are then tagged and moved to the rearing house.

So far, I have approximately 42% heifer calves and calf health has been good.

No complications

Easy-calving sires had been used on heifers last year, resulting in no complications for the heifers coming into the herd – we will do this again for this year’s heifers.

Urea has been spread, with 46 units per acre now on the grazing block.

I have good grass covers on the grazing block. This has meant that I am unable to get any slurry on to this block.

Average cover is around 700kgDM/ha, with the highest-cover paddock at 1,500kgDM/ha. Slurry has been spread on the outlaying blocks.

Grazing

Grazing is progressing well, but demand was low throughout February. Coupled with wet conditions, we only got 15 grazing days in February.

We have 12% of the grazing block grazed. Cows are out again during the day this week after a housed period from the start of March and we are getting them out for a short time after evening milking.

My ground is still wet and soft, but on/off grazing is helping me to limit the damage.

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Managing cows that calve in late March