By Nikita B. Damsgaard
Photo: Albie Keighley (left) & Anna Keighley (right).
Albie Keighley has been dairy farming on and off since he left school and has been in Taupiri, Waikato for more than 30 years. Albie works alongside his daughter, who has been contract milking here for the past 3 years. They have a herd of 200 cows, autumn calve and vary between a feeding system 3 and 4.
Anna likes the way that dairy farming gives you something to get up for every morning. The cows are always there, and they rely on you. Albie enjoys dairy farming because of the challenges he might have to face and finding ways of solving them together with his daughter. One of the challenges they have faced is the dry summers they get in the area making it difficult to get enough feed for the cows. They changed to Autumn calving instead so they could use more of the summer feed through the winter.
Facing challenges
A lot of changes have happened since Anna joined her parents on farm. She says that it was difficult to get their herd to eat the amounts of feed and pasture they would like them to eat, and for the cows to digest and produce milk with it. “It [feeding your herd] is probably the most important thing in this job to me. To have healthy cows you need well-fed cows. And I am all about healthy cows.” Anna says.
They saw first-hand why proper feed and healthy cows are important when three years ago, their production crashed from 2.4 milk solids down to 1.7 milk solids overnight. They didn’t know the cause of the decrease, but after working with Sollus’ nutritionist, Dr. Joe McGrath, they found that the cows suffered from subclinical acidosis and ketosis from 2 years prior, caused by the lack of proper minerals through transition.
Photo: Dr. Joe McGrath head of nutrition at Sollus.
Transition is key
Dr. Joe McGrath has a background in nutrition where he has done research around mineral-vitamin interaction in grass-based dairy and beef systems. This research has been implemented while creating Sollus’ product line. He says that it is common to not get clinical down cows when doing autumn calving, but they tend to have more cases of subclinical milk fever where the cows are up and functioning, but don’t get enough calcium because of a lack in feed intake. These cows are now fragile, they are only eating their in shed feed, and not their pasture sward (a sign of subclinical ketosis), causing a distortion in their diet and leading them to getting subclinical acidosis. This could lead to further ketosis causing a ketotic spiral making it difficult to rectify. It is therefore important to be aware of your cow’s behaviour and seeking help from the right people if you notice changes in your herd and do what you can to prevent this from happening by focussing on transition.
“What we did with Albie and Anna here was to employ a transition programme that focused on calcium management. The Hy-D® within TranzSol™ enables those cows to be healthy when they calved and that means to eat on day one, which meant that they didn’t get ketosis and that they continued to eat well with the feed that is offered, and this reduces any chances of ketosis and mastitis occurring through lactation.” Joe says.
The Sollus team has in addition to that advised them on how to get quality feed, as this is very important, especially in their maize silage. They used to harvest 34-35% dry matter now they take it out at 30% and they utilise a lot more feed from this change. “The difference is that the cows now eat the food and not waste it. We are making more milk now instead of just shovelling it [feed] out of the feed troughs to waste.” says Albie.
Photo: Dr. Joe McGrath (left) and Anna Keighley (right) with the herd.
Improvements in the herd
In the time that the Keighleys have used Sollus the cows have gotten a better temperament. They used to be sketchy and wild, but they have calmed down now. The general health of the herd and their body condition have also improved a lot. Anna is pleased to see how much their cows have changed because they are healthier and how big of a difference the Sollus minerals have made. It has truly changed her workload; “A Healthy cow will cruise through and just do what a cow does, where an unhealthy cow will create more workload for you.” she says.
They had liver biopsies taken last year by their vet who has been in the industry for 12 years. The vet was surprised to see that these were the best results they have ever seen. “The Sollus minerals are 100% the reason why the biopsy came back like this.” Says Anna.
The Keighleys buy all Sollus minerals in 25 kg bags. The dosage rate is the same every day when they work with one product, and they just add it in with the maize. They don’t need to use any extra minerals because the whole cow is considered in the mix.
Albie and Anna enjoy working with Sollus as they have a great support system. The Sollus team is always ready on the phone, and they have given them so much good advice to help them improve the herd’s health, leading them to an improvement in production as well.
They are always available to sort things out over the phone, and if they need more help they will be out on farm as quick as possible. “We have called Erin on a Sunday night, and he has been out in under an hour, because we were unsure of something.” says Anna.
The Keighleys are very happy about their decision to contact Sollus to help their herd when they did. They now have support all hours of the day and they know they always get the best advice from their Sollus rep Erin.