Farmer Focus: Anti-inflammatories prove their worth in herd

The cows had a real wobble at the beginning of February. We’ve put it down to a winter dysentery but can’t be really sure.

We typically have three or four cows on the CowManager sick list, but for about 10 days we struggled with more than 30.

Symptoms included thin muck, erratic temperatures and reduced milk.

See also: Benefits of giving heifers pain relief at calving

About the author

Tom Stable

Tom Stable and family, Ulverston, Cumbria, milk 350 Holsteins three times a day, producing milk for Arla and ice cream for their Cumbrian Cow brand. The 300ha operation, of which two thirds is rented, grows grass, maize and winter wheat and cows average 11,800 litres.

Read more articles by Tom Stable

The worst couple ended with a displaced abomasum, which required operations; the rest recovered with a bit of TLC, stomach pumping and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

The herd lost about 3 litres/day on average, and it’ll take a while to come back, but I’m sure it will.

NSAIDs have become our go-to treatment for sick cows, and it wasn’t until we installed the CowManager system we realised how potent they are.

Ketofen, in particular, now forms a crucial part of our system.

Things are really beginning to bounce, and getting the sheep off early makes a big difference.

We got the first dressing of nitrogen on the wheat at the end of February and followed onto the grass the week after.

We split these applications, going twice on the grassland for first cut and normally splitting the nitrogen onto the wheat into four passes.

We have pushed to get the sand out of the slurry store earlier than we might have wanted with ground conditions still tender.

But the builders will block access to it when they begin on our new shuttered tank.

This new tank will provide extra capacity and flexibility and will replace the channels we have had issues with.

The tank wasn’t going to be the first part of the build, but we have a transformer and three electric poles to move, which block the building.

We have found the electric board pretty good to work with, but they move at a glacial pace, and a road closure to accommodate the move complicates things further.

Arla held our price for March, which was a relief after the series of significant drops we have seen since early autumn. I’m not sure where things go next.

Someone asked me to guess the other day how long until things get back to normal, but I’m not even sure what normal is.

The next moves will be important, but let’s hope this is the bottom.