Dry Cow Problems

Central States

Abstract

I do not have anything radically new or different to offer. I will attempt to share with you some of the ideas and programs we try to accomplish in our practice with dry cow management. Dry cow management has not received the attention as have other areas of the dairy cow practice; consequently, I think the theme for this meeting is very timely.

I would state at the onset that I do not wish to lead you to believe we accomplish these things in all the herds we serve. It would be my wish that, someday, someone will come to this speaker's platform and tell me how to motivate people to try some of the things we are discussing. The problems of client education and motivation are very tough for us to deal with. We have tried every method except physical threats on our clients, and our results are not always rewarding. We certainly need help in this area of our practice. Herd size and problems have outrun the management ability in our area and this also compounds the problem-even more so with dry cow programs because clients are much more receptive to information dealing with production.

It goes without saying that nutrition and mastitis are two very important factors in dry cow management, but much more capable men than I have already covered this, so I will not try to improve on their information.

In the interest of brevity, I will present a dry cow program we are working with and trying to implement. Admittedly, some of this will be elementary, but we feel that programs must be simple, convenient, and easy for the owner to put into action or they will be a failure.