Author| Ren Wenjun [Vice President of Hebei Beef Cattle Association, Expert of Hebei Dairy Association Expert Group]
Editor| Li Hanjiang [Editor-in-Chief of Huaxia Influence New Media and Southern Influence New Media]
Recently, many ranches have been visited, and most of the ranches are fighting in the front line of silage reserve work, and some silage reserves are nearing completion. It is gratifying that many ranchers have reported that the quality of silage has improved this year, which is a good thing, because the effort will be rewarded, and the cows will be fed for a year, and the roughage throughout the year will not be worried.
However, although the heat stress in 2019 has quietly passed, the impact of the yield and milk indicators of each pasture is not very large, but the "post-autumn accounting" still brings losses to many farms, and a series of problems such as mastitis, hoof disease, postpartum and calf have appeared in the autumn season of many pastures, and these old-fashioned topics are always the focus of the pasture, which has sounded the alarm bell for the pasture. How to do a good job of effective prevention must continue to work hard, and all kinds of problems caused by oxidative stress under the general health have also become the focus of the improvement management of the pasture, from the health and longevity of dairy cows to high yields, the pasture still needs a long way to go. How to take this road, what are the key issues to pay attention to, let's explore it from a health perspective.
[One of the troubles] Dairy cattle health problems are common in the pasture, resulting in poor breeding of dairy cows
Whether it is Ningxia in the west or Jiangsu and Anhui in the south-central region, many pastures are still in deep trouble, especially the high rate of new cattle death and poor breeding caused by the slow increase in stocks, and even many pastures are regressing. As a result, we have seen a decline in the number of cattle in some farms, and some have attributed it to the so-called "environmental" pressure. Is this really the case?
Through communication with dozens of ranches, some of the problems are still unrecognizable. In fact, Teacher Diao Chunwen and I have always had a saying, that is, the cow breeding under the "great health", that is, the lack of healthy cattle is the most terrible. Cattle are unhealthy, of course, can not breed normally, which has become the inevitable use of certain hormones. Compared to Israel, their farms use hormones to breed less than 10% of their cattle, and our ranches have become reproductive necessities, after all, these hormones are always a potential threat to milk quality.
The high elimination rate of new cattle is not only in small and medium-sized pastures, but also in many high-end pastures, and even in pasture clusters with excellent cattle breeding, it seems that they have not provided more dairy cattle reserves. If calculated by a 15% stock increase, how much should the inventory of these excellent farms increase in the past decade or so? But where have the cattle gone? Reserve cattle are insufficiently replenished, perhaps because of the low milk prices in previous years, the cost of rear cattle feeding is too high or the quality of reserve cattle is inferior, so we have also used a large number of imported excellent frozen essences, but the resulting effect does not dare to agree.
During the Tianjin Dairy Conference, we learned that a farm of more than 300 heads in Australia has provided 100 heads of cattle to China in three years, which seems to be not much we can do, but it is common in Australia, New Zealand and European countries. What causes the gap? Maybe just two words – health.
Many diseases are not natural disasters, but human factors
What problems keep the herd in an unhealthy or sub-healthy state? The reason for the elimination of new cattle is nothing more than postpartum disease and low milk, but we want to emphasize that in addition to infectious diseases, humans have brought them more health problems. The emergence of some problems has become a necessity for the use of certain pharmaceutical additives, so a variety of "magic medicine" additives have been born according to the needs of the pasture. Perhaps these additives have solved many problems and even led to the development of the industry, but these technological products have not improved the overall health of the cattle, and the number of cattle is still decreasing.
After discussion, although there are other factors, some wrong feeding concepts and unscientific feeding methods are still one of the main causes of dairy cow diseases, resulting in problems in pasture management.
For example, health problems brought about by the introduction of cattle. A certain area in the west is highly concentrated, and the cattle come from all over the world, including the acquisition of many small and medium-sized pastures in the country. As they introduced cattle, they also introduced many diseases, so that these cattle lived in bombs that could be detonated at any time, and some of the weaker cattle caused by poor management became the first to be eliminated. In fact, this problem does not only exist in the west, all the farms that keep buying supplementary cattle have this problem, which has also led to the current domestic dairy cow prices "flying", and good cows have nowhere to buy.
For example, the health problems caused by unscientific breeds. A ranch in the northeast region to raise strong heat stress-resistant Juanshan cattle, is a wrong choice, thin skin and short hair Juanshan cattle have to endure the suffering of high cold, so high death is inevitable.
Another example is the health problems brought about by dry milk perinatal management. First, the cows are too fat, when dry milk, many cattle herd score reached more than 3.5 points, and lack of exercise, so a series of postpartum problems such as dystocia and ketosis appeared, resulting in elimination, which can be solved by only a few rumen products? As a result, the cattle herd on their own farms continue to decrease, and the yield has not increased due to the increase in new cattle production. Therefore, it is important to include the nutrition of the reserve cattle for the first 60 days of delivery before dry milk, especially the physical condition and appropriate exercise before delivery. The second is to lose weight when dry milk, this method is more undesirable, dry milk is to repair the rumen and mammary glands, supplement hormones and antibodies, weight loss and subtraction lead to low postpartum immunity of new cattle, and the probability of problems during and after childbirth is higher.
In fact, the biggest problem at present is that the pastures are compared with each other, different cattle, different environments need different management, have to imitate other people's practices, the pursuit of high yield "halo", this is the problem of management ideas. The health of the cow is the health of the rumen, so the limb and foot disease caused by rumen acidosis, the lack of nutrient loss caused by the rumen health problem, and then the estrus of the cow and many other problems, so that the veterinarian has an inexhaustible fire, can not be extinguished, these problems are not solved well, how can there be a good breeding result?
From the perspective of deep reasons, ranches should not blindly follow high yields, but should formulate their own healthy development strategies
Along the way, the development of many pastures in China, especially small and medium-sized pastures, really needs good guidance, health is the foundation of development, with a good development foundation to have a higher space for progress, in order to get high yields and longevity, in order to have the initiative to selectively eliminate conditions. Blindly and unrealistically following imitation will still bring many ranches into misunderstandings, and many misunderstandings are difficult to turn over. Therefore, I hope that everyone can also scientifically and long-term consider the development of pastures, especially small and medium-sized pastures.
Family farms should be the main force of dairy farming, they can use more regional resources to reduce production costs. The question now is how to guide them on the right path to sustainable development, and cattle breeding should have a long-term strategy, not short-sighted rapid development!
Author Ren Wenjun's Personal Profile——
Graduated from Shanxi Agricultural University in 1991, chief pastor, engaged in breeding technology and pasture management for 29 years, worked in Fujian Changfu Group, Inner Mongolia Yili and Mengniu Fuyuan Animal Husbandry Ranch engaged in pasture management positions, is currently the general manager of Zhongjiao Lianzhong Animal Husbandry Technology Co., Ltd., vice president of Hebei Beef Cattle Association, vice director of Hebei Animal Husbandry Association, hebei dairy association expert group expert. He has visited and trained thousands of farms across the country, specializing in farm evaluation and consulting services, publishing nearly 148 practical management technology articles in professional magazines, and likes to make friends with all cattle people in the world and discuss the experience of farm improvement technology.