Mike Allwood
Mike Allwood
Mike Allwood is owner-
occupier of 82ha (200
acres) near Nantwich,
Cheshire. The 175-cow
dairy herd block calves
during May and June. As
well as converting to
organic production, he
produces unpasteurised
cheese
WHEN it became clear last spring that we may not have access to AI because of foot-and-mouth disease, we put our young Hereford bull with cows.
Calving started in February, rather than Apr 1 as normal, and he appears to have performed a good job.
The early start to calving has caused a few problems because we are not kitted out to calve cows indoors, so buildings will be rather full by turnout, which I hope will be soon.
Last autumn was the first time we managed to graze down grass fields properly in preparation for winter. No danger of winter kill, no need for time wasting woolly things, I thought. Unfortunately, there is no danger of any early spring grass either.
We do at least have the consolation of plenty of good silage. Giles, our herdsman, has been cutting off concentrate to cows which are due to go dry, only to find that they carry on milking.
When we dry off we dip with a teat sealant and put the cow into a well-bedded kennel building. If the udder looks tight after two or three days, we will milk her again and feed the milk to calves. We watch dry cows carefully and if there is any sign of mastitis we strip out the quarter and give a course of lactating cow tubes.
Since going organic we have had a little more mastitis in dry cows – although this may because we are watching them more keenly – and much fewer cases in milking cows.
Cell counts have risen and were reaching close to 350 in the autumn, so we were beginning to worry about milk saleability. We did a series of individual cell counts and discovered most were under 100, while a few were more than 1m.
Our response was to sell or dry off a few of the worst offenders, while forming a group of 20 with high counts or seen with clots, so we could milk them at the end. The bulk count is now in the 200s and clinical mastitis has fallen away to very little. *
Lack of early spring grass growth means cows are having to stay inside. Luckily, there is plenty of silage, says Mike Allwood.