The optimal start for healthy calves
The optimal start for healthy calves
Gert-Jan Gerrits, Technical Sales and Commercial director, Nuscience Cehave Korm
Animal health is of vital importance when raising calves destined to become highly productive dairy cattle or beef cattle. Getting them off to a good start after birth is key to the rest of the raising period. During the first year the aim is achieve a maximum mortality rate of 10%.
Where demand exceeds supply
Tatiana Antonenko, International Dairy Magazine
Chernigivshchyna — a land where large scale milk production was preserved since Soviet Union. According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy data in 2010 the amount of cattle in the region reached 149.6 thousand head. However, in June 2011 it decreased to 143.4 thousand (95.9%).
Increasing dairy cows’ resistance to disease through their feed
Gert-Jan Gerrits, Technical Sales and Commercial director, CehaveKorm LTD
Strong, sustainable milk production starts with cows in optimum health. Providing a well-balanced diet based on the nutritional requirements for a high milk yield, in combination with good management, is an absolute must. This challenge is becoming harder and harder nowadays due to the growing pressure to reduce the use of antibiotics in farm animals. As a result, the potential effect of feed supplements on animals’ immunity is attracting greater interest.
The vitamins and minerals that play an important role in udder health include vitamin E, selenium and zinc, thus a sufficient dosage should be given to the animals (see tables 1-2-3).
The technology dictates the rules of the game
Sergei Yasevin, zootechnician, milking unit manager of «Promin», graduate of the faculty of technology of production and processing of livestock products in Nikolaev State Agrarian University
Milking is not the most important procedure at the dairy farm. In order to get maximum quality milk from the cows just to have animals, equipment and staff is not enough. You need properly to organize performance in the parlor, follow-up operations and evaluate performance.
Voluntary Milking System
Scientific researches on the development of automated milking systems started in the late 70s of last century. Only 15 years later the first commercial robotic milker (robot) has appeared on the market. By the end of 2010 the world has had more than 17 thousand robots. Taking into account the growing popularity of automated milking and, accordingly, the rate of sales by the end of this year, their number in the world will be 20 thousand.
«Immigrants» in Ukraine
Each farmer knows a simple truth: in order to achieve significant success in dairy farming, you constantly need to worry about the reproduction of healthy productive livestock. But implementing it in practice is not so easy. The problem is in a poor domestic breeding, which lags far behind foreign breeding.
Bedding renewal
Effective use of manure in Ukraine has been and remains important for many dairy farms because of environmental damage: air pollution with ammonia and bad influence on the soil. Very often manure is accumulated in a pile or pit on the farms, and later it is transported to the field. It is known that to get qualitative and useful humus, it should be kept at least a year. However, manure accumulates daily. For example, 1,000 head of cattle per day produces an average 35 tons of manure. Of course, it is easier to get rid of it by transporting on the field. Farmers will rather build new barn for livestock to increase the herd than take up place with lagoons.
Mastitis
Stepan Lyhosherst, Ukrainian Dairy Association consultant on veterinary
Mastitis is an inflammation of the udder, which is almost always caused by bacterial infection. The disease is called «clinical mastitis» if you see signs of the disease: for example, swelling or redness of the udder quarters or visible changes of milk (clots, flakes, color change).
Company’s safety
Irina Panibratets, director of recruitment company «AgriPersonnel»
One of the most pressing issues of agricultural market is companies’safety. Previously, we have written about such problems of agricultural markets: lack of qualified personnel, peculiarities of the Ukrainian mentality, failure of technologies, as well as other factors on which the outcome depends on.
One step from the technology, three — from profit
Vladimir Khvostov, director of «Torgovyi Dim“Dolinskoye”», about the features of milk business in southern Ukraine
His path into business and dairy industry, in particular, is very similar to the way of many children from changeover time. Time was changing and the moral foundations were changing too, young people began to engage in business being students. Later in his business appeared milk, though at first it was not production or even processing. Raw milk was bought or traded for oil. It was rented for processing as goods made on commission, for it cheese was given, butter, or other that had great demand, was sold. Then they began to realize that buying and selling without its own production has no future and that the production is a prerequisite for development and prosperity. Lack of special education did not prevent the development of its own agricultural business — growing grain and milk production. Zeal, charisma, organizational skills, to some extent adventurism and a great desire to achieve the goal did the trick. «We surrounded ourselves with experts: agriculturists, technologists who understood the production. We were growing up together with them and they also changed — we all depart from sovietdom, chose for ourselves the most promising areas of production. We understood that it must be a business that gives the best results and maximum profits. Of course, first we kept the technology and crop rotation», — saidVladimir.
