A lot of things have changed since I milked 40 cows in a tie-stall barn in 2001. We certainly know a lot more about transition cows than we did then. We measure things we could not measure and balance things we did not know we needed to balance. And, we didn’t know anything about managing transition cows in robots. One thing that has not changed about transition cow management – it is still about getting them to eat as much as possible, as quickly as possible. We know more about why, and we have new tools to make it happen, but the importance of dry matter intake has not changed.
This article is about special challenges for transition cows in robots. Future articles will get into managing those things in specific scenarios – transitioning cows directly to the main robot group; through a special needs group; or through a parlor.
Cows have to get a fast start in robot barns – especially free flow barns. As one colleague put it, “Get them milking above the energy level of the PMR as quickly as possible.” His point is, cows come to the robots because they want something they don’t get in the partial mixed ration (PMR). If the PMR alone supports 80 lbs of milk, and a cow doesn’t get past 80 pounds of milk until 30 days in milk then she doesn’t have much incentive to come to the robot for 30 days. If she isn’t coming to the robot, she may not have time to eat the pellets she needs to challenge higher production. And so it goes. Of course, fresh cows eat less PMR than the rest of the herd, so PMR will support less milk for them than for the average cow.
Fresh cows have to learn to find their way to the feed bunk. This is particularly important in guided flow barns. Cows will not eat as much PMR as they should if they only make the 3 to 4 trips to the feed bunk that go with being fetched for milking. I worked with a herd that had way too many DA’s after startup because when new fresh cows were introduced to the robot barn, they didn’t make enough trips to the bunk. Everything was balanced correctly, but cows were not eating enough PMR to maintain gut fill. This problem can be prevented by sending cows through the system often enough that they learn that the gates allow them to go to either feed or milking.
On a recent Hoard’s Dairyman webinar, Jim Salfer shared research which showed that robot cows have a higher risk of ketosis than their parlor counterparts. This can be a result of inadequate PMR intake or inadequate pellet intake. Training can help with the PMR intake as mentioned above. Jim talked about the importance of increasing pellets as quickly as possible after freshening. I have fixed feed tables that take 30 days to get mature cows to a full feed of pellets – either by design or by oversight. Granted, increasing pellets too quickly can result in acidosis and when that happens, everything takes a step backward.
Cow Corner can help with transition cow management. I can help fine tune milk access to make sure fresh cows have access to robots and pellets. I can adjust gate decisions for the right mix of trips to the robot and trips to the bunk. I can work with your nutritionist to make sure feed tables are doing what the nutritionist intended. Let’s talk. Click over to the contact page at https://www.cow-corner.co/contact to make an appointment.
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