Animal health is a key priority on the Verkley family dairy farm near Hazerwoude-Dorp in the Netherlands. The vet visits on a fortnightly basis, selective dry cow therapy is more or less mandatory across the country and antibiotic usage is closely monitored.

When vet Bart Geurts arrives on a Monday morning, the first thing he does is pregnancy-test the cows. The farm has 220 cows milking on an indoor system and calving is year-round. Bart also checks the calves, dehorns them, vaccinates the cows and discusses any disease issues.

“Sometimes it’s just checking and sometimes there is more to discuss and we do faecal samples or talk about somatic cell count,” Bart explained.

“Every year we do a health plan for the farm, look at sickness incidents, look at animal daily dose, use of antibiotics, how they are used and what we can do better at the farm. We discuss with the farmer what he wants to do better and with an animal treatment plan the farmer gets a plan of what antibiotics to use for what disease.”

Milk production is currently averaging more than 10,000kg per/cow/year at 4.2% fat and 3.6% protein. The cows are on a diet of grass silage, maize, wheat and minerals. The cows are getting 6kg meal/day and, on average, two cows per month get mastitis on the Verkley farm.

Bull calves are sold at two weeks of age to meat company VanDrie for €100 to €150. The farm uses 40% Belgian Blue straws and the calving interval is 390 days.

The young stock are reared off farm from four months of age and are two years old when they return in calf. In the first year, contract-rearing of heifers costs more than €2/day but this includes a phosphates rights fee.

The vet must also complete a report annually, scoring the farm on housing, animal welfare, disease, feeding and calf mortality. Farmers bear the cost of this programme. The scores range from one to five; where one is high risk and five is low risk. If the score is three or lower, the vet must look at why that is and give advice to the farmer. The vet also draws up a treatment plan every year.

Outdoors

There are incentives for farmers in the Netherlands to graze their cows outdoors, but according to the Verkleys, the incentives do not compensate for the loss of milk production.

“Three years ago, we were grazing outdoors,” says farmer Paul Verkley. “The climate is too extreme outside, the cows do a lot of damage to land. The farmer and cows are happy now [that they are inside]. Every five weeks, we mow the silage.

“FrieslandCampina gives 1.5c/l or 2c/l more if the cows are outside for more than six hours a day for 120 days a year. The milk price is currently 36c/l and you get paid for fat and protein.”

When asked what the biggest risk to farming in the Netherlands is, Paul said “the government”.

He said: “We have very high efficiency but when they want us to keep the cows outside the efficiency reduces. The animal welfare lobby is strong here. To go outdoors you need 3c/l to compensate for the loss in yield but the incentive is 1.5c/l. Cows would only produce 7,500kg outdoors, compared with over 10,000kg indoors.”

Antibiotics

To get antibiotics in the Netherlands, you must have a farm treatment plan. Five years ago, a programme was started to reduce usage.

“It changed the mindset of farmers,” Bart Geurts told the Irish Farmers Journal. “More painkillers and less antibiotics are now used. Every year you must talk about herd health and reduce the daily antibiotic dosage. There is no government funding for the programme. It is arranged by law. When an animal’s annual dose goes above six you must do a health plan.

“The average animal annual dose is 2.5 (an animal is treated with antibiotics 2.5 days in the year). If all cows were dried off with antibiotics, the animal’s dose would be 2.8. You are allowed to have antibiotics on the farm but you can’t have more than 15% of your herd for one treatment in storage. With big herds, this is fine but because of the size of the dry cow boxes this is a problem for guys with 80 cows.”

Salmonella

Six years ago, salmonella control was started in the Netherlands. While it is more of a problem in the west and north of the country, it is a nationwide programme. The Verkley farm stopped using water from the canals for the cows in order to avoid risk of contamination. In the Netherlands, canals are above the height of the fields, as much of the land is below sea level.

Despite the control programme, there is no vaccine registered for salmonella in the Netherlands. If a farm tests positive three times, the farmer is required to do a course, make a plan and sample all cows by blood or milk. Six months later, this must be repeated. Paul Verkley explained that this is an expensive exercise for the farmer.