New kids on the dairy block

I thought I had been a dairy farmer long enough to have seen it all, but apparently not.

Most “new” issues or topics are those of things years ago – they have just been recycled and given a new name. Thirty years is about right for something to re‑emerge as a new issue in the perpetual life cycle of dairy farming.

But two topics have come up recently that were new to me – I don’t know much about the first, but I thought that its name was self‑explanatory; that it didn’t apply to us, so there was no need to read up on it.

Transition management

Much has been written in the dairy farming press over the past year or so about transition management. I think if you have a high-yielding herd – shall we say you are aiming for 10,000L plus – a time exists after a cow calves when she has to be moved from where she was when she calved to where she is to set out on her new lactation. This not only entails a move of housing, it also involves a change of diet.

It is this latter point that I suspect poses the bigger problem. At sometime in the process the cow has to move to a high-performance diet. It will probably be a total maintenance ration. If the move to this diet is too sudden the cow will lose appetite, condition and weight, and this will inevitably lead to loss of milk. It’s the first 100 days of a cow’s lactation that is critical.

Production follows a predictable curve and if something goes wrong in these first 100 days that takes production below that curve, it is very difficult to get production back. Hence we get transition management, which I assume is a sort of halfway house between the two diets.

It all seems common sense to me and it doesn’t really apply to us because we are only looking for our cows to average 6,000L. When I think of our own management of newly calved cows, a transition management exists of a sort, but that is determined by the needs of the calf.

Calves are usually allowed to suckle their dams for a week after they are born – the cow runs with the herd all day and returns to her calf at night, so she is given a week to adjust to her new feeding regime. It all seems common sense to me – its prominence in the dairy farming media is probably promoted by companies that sell transition diets anyway. Which is fair enough – seizing commercial opportunities is often what it’s all about.

Pica

But I was completely thrown by the other issue. This is called pica. I’d never heard of it and I have never met anyone whose herd has suffered from it. My vet has included it as a topic in his newsletter; he says it is caused by mineral deficiency – possibly magnesium or phosphorous – or possibly a shortage of dietary fibre.

It manifests itself by cattle trying to eat stones, which I have never seen; or soil, which I have seen often. I was intrigued by the name pica – I’d never heard it before. Where did that come from?

So I got my two big dictionaries down. They are seldom used because they are so big – they are big enough to block wheels of a tractor to stop it running away.

I’ve always been intrigued by the meaning of words. If I was at a conference years ago and a speaker used a word I didn’t know the meaning of, I would put my hand up and ask. Then at a break, people would come up to me and say they were glad I had asked because they didn’t know what it meant, either.

Sometimes the speaker would struggle to explain what it meant. What does pica mean? The first dictionary read: “A morbid craving to eat things not normally eaten.” The second dictionary read the same, but as an example: “A desire by pregnant women to eat coal.” Which I also have never seen. Where do they get these stones? I suspect my cattle live in a stone-free environment.

It is not in any way connected, but it reminds me of an experience of a farmer I knew who lived in west Wales. This farmer kept a lot of sheep on a hill farm. The family had rented the farm for generations. The landlord lived in London and decided to sell the farm.

It’s a fact of life that a farm that is subject to an agricultural tenancy is worth about a third of what it’s worth freehold. The landlord knows this, but there is nothing he can do about it. He sends an agent out of London to value the farm.

The agent didn’t know much about farming and dressed as if he was off to shoot grouse. The farmer notices all this. The agent inspects the house and then says he will see the land. The agent asks why they can’t go in the Land Rover. The farmer says it is much too steep, which is true.

They climb up some really steep hillsides; the agent is exhausted and pauses to sit on a wall. “I need to make some notes,” he says. “What would you say are the two main outputs of this farm?” The farmer doesn’t hesitate to say: “Rocks and fern”. The agent writes rocks and fern in his notebook.

“I’d better be getting back now,” he says. He never sees the good fields around the corner of the hill and the farmer buys the farm at a price he can only have dreamt of. He didn’t keep many cattle, but I bet that if they had pica, they didn’t have to look far for stones to eat.

Badger cull coming

“They” are organising a badger cull in this area. I have signed up to it, but I haven’t paid any money. I suspect that if I don’t pay the money, I’m not in the cull. They firstly wanted a four‑figure sum off me, but when I queried this they reduced it by £400.

It has never been satisfactorily explained to me what I get for my money. I’ve got mixed feelings over it all, I have never wanted to be a part of something that euthanises healthy animals.

We have been clear of TB for two years now, so perhaps my attitude has changed. If we should fail our next test, which is due in the autumn, my position could be hardened.

I know of three local men who have agreed to be trappers – they told me; it’s not knowledge I have sought. I have told them it is probably best they don’t tell anyone else, for obvious reasons. Since they have been involved they seem less than enthusiastic; they had to pay towards their training and if they should want a cup of tea, they had to take it with them.

I think the organisation that is organising the proposed cull has resources to carry it out and I know I am not helping in this respect.

Personally, I don’t think the cull will take place. I think it will be halted by the influence of people like the Goldsmiths and the prime minister’s fiancée. They have been given further ammunition by the prospect of cattle vaccination in just a few years’ time.

There’s always an irony. If the cattle are all vaccinated and all badger culling ceased as a consequence, the badger population could explode. TB would become endemic in badgers, a lot of badgers would die as a result and we could end up in just the same place anyway.