It is important to ensure you have enough supplies to keep the herd going over the Christmas period while co-ops are closed.
The majority of co-ops will be closed from either Tuesday evening (December 23) or from noon on Christmas Eve (Wednesday, December 24).
While some farm stores and co-ops may reopen on Saturday (December 27), others may be closed until the following Monday (December 29).
Therefore, you should be carrying out a checklist of the essentials and checking to see the opening times of your local store to ensure you can get enough supplies to get over the closed period.
This is particularly important for winter milking herds as they need to ensure there is enough concentrates in the meal bin and enough supplies in terms of artificial insemination (AI) if the breeding season has already begun.
Supplies for Christmas
The majority of spring calving herds are dried off by now, so ensuring you have enough minerals and feed will get these farmers by.
However, winter milk herds are in the situation where cows are flat-out milking, breeding season may have begun, while others may still be calving.
Both farm systems should have a chat with their vet to ensure they have enough antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and other essential drugs in the case of an emergencies.
This time of the year is a high-risk period in terms of mastitis for both herds, as winter milkers are freshly calved, and spring calvers are freshly dried.
Therefore, ensuring you have enough supplies of hydrated lime or sawdust for the Christmas period is essential in maintaining a high standard of hygiene.
To further ensure hygiene, check the scrapers are all in working order and ensure you have enough scraper oil for the period and a spare hydraulic pipe in the event of a burst pipe.
In addition, check the oil in the backend of the tractor or loader, and buy/top up accordingly.
Winter milking
Farmers who are still milking cows throughout the Christmas period need to ensure they have enough supplies to keep the parlour running smoothly.
You should check you have the following within the milking parlour:
- Enough detergent, descaler, acid, bulk tank wash, and peracetic acid;
- Enough teat dip;
- Plenty of milk filter socks for the period;
- Standby milk liners and tubes in the yard;
- Back-up claw pieces;
- Enough salt for the water softener if one is in place.
You should also have enough stock for calving, such as gloves, calving ropes and jack, disinfectant and iodine for naval, stomach tubes, and a brix refractometer to test colostrum.
Many autumn calves will now be on ration, so make sure you have enough calf feed and milk replacer.
It is also a good idea to have electrolytes on hand for any calves that are suffering from scour.
In case a cow goes down with milk fever, you should also have some calcium magnesium available.
