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Joep Driessen’s cow signals programme can help prevent common management mistakes – often oversights made on a day-to-day basis. Here, Joep shares some of the most crucial animal husbandry aspects to look out for. Stockmanship Quiet cow handling, especially in the dairy shed, on feedpads and in barns, will reduce cow stress, hoof damage, be easier to handle and produce more milk. Good stockmanship can be as simple as managing your tone of voice and touching cows gently, by patting rather than hitting. This also means no chasing, no shouting or getting closer than two fenceposts from the last cow when bringing them in for milking. One study found cows produce 8-10 percent more milk when women do the milking, due to their softer, higher pitched voice and tendency to be gentler. What to do: Talk followed by touch can get a cow’s confidence and reduce flight distance, which should be triggered at no more than 5m. Happy cows have a flight distance of less than 2m. Understanding a cow’s balance point will also help get close to cows – the balance point is an invisible line across the shoulders. Approaching a cow from behind that balance point line will cause a cow to walk forward, while approaching from the front will cause her to walk back. Use the shoulder as a guide to approach nervous cows from the side, rather than from the front or back. By approaching from the side, she doesn’t realize you are getting closer. A calm cow can be approached from the front. Also, when approaching a cow, don’t look directly at her with your eyes. Talk friendly to your cows and use a higher pitch voice. Try calling cows using a friendly, high voice when you want them to come into the shed and a harsher tone of voice to get them out. Good stockmanship will result in happy cows, more milk, pleasurable work and fewer sick cows. Joep recommends farm staff see things through the eyes of a cow and learn how to reduce stressful situations for them. Understanding a cow’s balance point will also help get close to cows – the balance point is an invisible shoulderto-shoulder line. Use the shoulder as a guide to approach nervous cows from the side, rather than from the front or back. > InsideDairy 3
Animal husbandry to look out for day-to-day Empty rumen The danger triangle Found on the cow’s left-side, between the hook bone and the last rib, the danger triangle (or hollow) indicates a cow has not eaten in the last six hours. The apple and the pear Look at the cow from behind – the apple is the left side of the belly and the pear is the right side. A healthy cow will have a belly bulging out on the left side and feels firm and juicy when pressed in. If not, it has not had enough food for one week. Deep cuckoo hole Again, look at the cow from behind. The cuckoo hole (otherwise known as the tail hollow) is found on either side of the tail and if it is deep, indicates a very thin cow with little body fat (the equivalent to
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