Rural delivery: Skinny state of cows costly for dairy industry

By CLIVE DALTON*

A British vet visiting New Zealand said he had learned to look at our cows from the side as they were so skinny to be almost invisible end on.

This is the land of the skinny cow.

There are plenty of reasons our cows are thinner than European or American cows - ours are pasture fed, they work harder and they walk further. New Zealand dairy farmers cull fat cows believing that if they are putting on condition, they are not putting milk in the vat.

But many observers realise that we have gone too far. It seems as though we have lived with walking toast-racks for so long, especially in the Waikato which has led dairy practice, that we don't know how skinny our cows are.

To assess cow condition (or fatness), farmers use a scale from one (severely emaciated) to eight (obese). Dairy cows never get above five, like beef cows do, and there is no need for them to do so.

We like a cow to calve at condition-score five, and stay around four to 4.5 while milking at her peak, otherwise she gets pregnant late, or not at all, and calves late next season.

Calving at a score of five, instead of four, is worth $19,000 more income from a 300-cow herd, so it is not just an academic nicety.

We have cows verging on being emaciated because the majority of farmers cannot score their cows in an honest, consistent and accurate manner. Worse, they dare not admit their ignorance, so they never learn.

Farmers at discussion groups routinely score cows at 4.5 - a non-controversial score.

They have never learned condition-scoring because they were not taught it. They were supposed to learn from words and pictures produced over the years but it is clear that the method was semi-useless.

I believed, from teaching condition-scoring using a simple method developed at the Waikato Polytech, that most farmers and some consultants were half a score too generous.

But new information shows that many farmers could be up to two scores too generous. This is a concern as it will ensure that our cows remain skinny (with all the resulting problems) and people will carry on in ignorance.

What are the problems? Cows are milked too long into autumn, underfed in winter, calve skinny and have low production. They have delayed oestrus, or heat, and need hormone treatment. They have a lower pregnancy rate which means wasting expensive semen, and need abortions next spring to bring their calving back in line with the rest of the herd.

There are higher vet bills, lower profits and nervous bankers.

You could even argue that skinny cows are suffering, and under the new Animal Welfare Act that is an offence.

Our overseas customers who want to know more about how we farm our animals are noticing it.

The dairy industry is chasing an annual 4 per cent increase in productivity over the next decade, and it is a challenge. But it need not be.

It could easily get 4 per cent for the next two years at least, if not more, by farming cows that were not on the verge of emaciation most of their lives.

Simply teaching farmers how to condition-score their cows could achieve that target easily.

It only takes 15 to 20 minutes to learn, and about an hour to recover from the shock of realising how much the previous scoring system was out.

* Dr Clive Dalton is technical editor of Lifestyle Block NZ