Extending cows lactations

[clayfoot-sandyman]

The other day we visited the Hare Krishna’s, just north of London – they have a fabulous new multi million pound barn and dairy, paid for by their devotees….
We went there primarily to check out their oxen as they don’t kill any of their calves the males are trained for work (they work them with nose rings, will write up about that another time!). They have about 60 cattle, about 25 of which are mature cows, the rest are either youngstock, oxen or retired oxen/cows. Because they don’t want too many calves they extend the cows lactation out for as long as possible; one cow there had been milked for 9 years and was still giving 18 litres(4.75 gallons) per day on average.
The farm manager Syam said that an average lactation is 4 years, and they’ll dry them off when they’re giving about half a litre per day! So the bull was on a serious ration only getting 4 cows per year. Syam also told us that when you extend the lactation it tends to mess their heat up and it’s difficult to AI them so if you do extend lactation then you need a bull.
They keep the calves on for 6 months but don’t let them run with the cows. Next to the milking parlour is a pen where all the calves are kept. They milk off three quarters (they hand milk) and then put the cows in with the calves for an hour or so, so the calves get a whole quarter for themselves twice per day.
I have to say that I was quite impressed by their approach, they put enormous value on the milk, the cow and their animal welfare – they even showed us their ‘cow hospital’ complete with crane to turn dying cattle to avoid pressure sores. There is obvious ‘economic realities’ that they don’t have; when asked what his costs were for a litre of milk (quart) he reckoned about £2.40 ($3.80) but somewhere we all know that we aren’t paying a ‘real’ price for milk and that the costs are externalised (e.g; animal suffering, farmer suffering, environment suffering etc), maybe this price is more realistic?
It got me thinking to try extending one cows lactation for two years, I couldn’t imagine going for so long that I’m trying to squeeze out a meager half a litre per day from her udder (!) but I’d also rather not have calves to deal with, I can’t stand putting them in the local market and we don’t need so much beef. So I was wondering if anyone else has any experience of extending lactations in cows and/or keeping calves part on whilst milking….? Ed

[near horse]

Wow – neat thread. I must have overlooked this the first go ’round and have never heard of extending lactations. I can see how it might mess up heat cycling somewhat. Sorry I can’t help but I’ve got lots of questions.

Did they give you any idea of conception rates (or ease) when they did try to breed back?
How about body condition after 2 or 3 yrs of lactating? Which, in turn can affect conception.
Other management related info? Like maybe, mastitis (any) and if so, more in one quarter vs another (nursed vs hand milked).
Estimate of total milk production from an extended lactation?

Sad part is not only do modern dairies stay on the general 305 day schedule for lactation, but also cull cows around the 3rd/4th lactation.

Thanks Ed.

BTW – do they process their own milk? Into what – yoghurt, ghee, cheese …?

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Hi Geoff – I sent your questions to Syamasundara the farm manager – have pasted it below for you……

>Did they give you any idea of conception rates (or ease) when they did
>try to breed back?

in some cases we did have difficulty getting cows pregnant again after a very long lactation of 4 years plus. this was especially the case in using AI. We bought a bull as a consequence and generally dont have problems keeping our breeding quota. Some cows do lose fertility still. As we dont kill any of our cows it does not matter to us if some of our cows can conceive as long as we can breed four a year.

>How about body condition after 2 or 3 yrs of lactating? Which, in turn
>can affect conception.

Our cows do seem to put on a bit more body fat than may be noticed in surrounding herds. This is something I have seen in other ISKCON farms. I dont think it is just in the cows that have a long lactation but indeed any cow or ox that is not producing milk or draft. To keep the overweight cows in better condition we found feeding straw in the winter rather than hay did the trick.

>Other management related info? Like maybe, mastitis (any) and if so,
>more in one quarter vs another (nursed vs hand milked).

As we hand milk we dont get mastitis very often. That said we recently had two cows that had it and we treated it with silver water and that didthe trick very quickly. I can see that hand milking is better for the udder than machine milking. I have read that 40% of dairy cows suffer from mastitis.
Our figure is nothing like that.

>Estimate of total milk production from an extended lactation?

I am not sure if our figures will be helpful to you because we start with a specific type of cow that is not one of the biggest milk breeds. We also give 25% of the milk to the calf until it is 6 months old. we also dont cull out any low yielding cows so have records from even low yielding non dairy type cows or sometimes cows that only give milk for lesser time. We also dont feed our cows like athletes but just give them a simple diet of crushed grains and vegetable with their hay or grass. That said we estimate that we get 10,000 litres per calf with an average lactation of 4 years. We have a cow now that has been giving milk for 9 years and is stillgiving us 18 litres per day. Without checking my detailed records for her we could estimate that she has given us about 45,000 litres of milk so far.

Hope that’s useful. As for milk processing all their milk is used within their community, they primarily turn it onto ghee and barfi, delicious boiled milk sweets

This is also quite interesting, a project connected to the Krishna’s producing ‘slaughter-free’ milk for delivery to North London http://www.ahimsamilk.org/

Hope all’s well. I’m dodging rain clouds trying to get hay made…..! Take care, Ed

[near horse]

ive them a simple diet of crushed grains and vegetable with their hay or grass. That said we estimate that we get 10,000 litres per calf with an average lactation of 4 years. We have a cow now that has been giving milk for 9 years and is stillgiving us 18 litres per day. Without checking my detailed records for her we could estimate that she has given us about 45,000 litres of milk so far.

Thanks Ed!

I’m still astounded by the production they’re getting with those extended lactations.

“That said we estimate that we get 10,000 litres per calf with an average lactation of 4 years. We have a cow now that has been giving milk for 9 years and is stillgiving us 18 litres per day. Without checking my detailed records for her we could estimate that she has given us about 45,000 litres of milk so far.”

Also please thank Syamasundara for taking time to address my questions. Do you know what prompted them to use extended lactation management in the first place? Is it part of the Krishna practice/doctrine or is it something newer?

BTW – making hay as we speak.

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Do you know what prompted them to use extended lactation management in the first place? Is it part of the Krishna practice/doctrine or is it something newer?

There motive is primarily to not to kill any cows as they believe that killing cows/animals has serious karmic implications but they also believe that the cow/bull/ox is a gift from God to man and should be utilised but cared for. They see milk as a very sacred substance but meat is entirely forbidden.
By going for the standard 305 day lactation/one calf born yearly they’d be overwhelmed with animals very quickly – Syam reckons he’s almost at the level now where he has four die per year and four born per year i.e; a stable herd number. I think he said that to milk around 30 cows it means a herd of around 70…..
He describes the bull as being on a ‘serious ration’ – four cows per year. He leaves the cow to run with the bull after being served so as to satiate his interest in other cows and avoid the bull smashing through fences to get to the other cows! He says this works but that keeping a bull is unavoidable in getting cows pregnant after long lactations as described earlier.

Good luck with your hay, it’s raining buckets here…..need another nice high pressure to get the rest of my fields cut. Ed

[Nat(wasIxy)]

Ooo, in interesting thread! Extended lactation common practise here – hubby milked his goat for 12yrs after it had just one kid in it’s lifetime! We regularly buy cull cows knowing they probably won’t calve again and simply milk them until they stop. As long as the care is good and you keep up demand, they will keep milking. There’s a driving Jersey cow out there – she is driven hundreds of miles and has been in milk for a looong time I believe?

[Nat(wasIxy)]

forgot to say – kind of related – some people are looking at skipping a dry period altogether and just milk right through. Not sure I like the idea of that one, as what about colostrum for a replacement heifer (at least?) skimping on youngsters like that I never find to be a good idea…

However, I have friends who breastfeed two children – something like 18 months and newborn….so maybe it’s fine?

[near horse]

I guess another question I have would be regarding milk composition after a year of milking. Does it change? I think with the large high production animals, like Holsteins, the volume of milk produced is a huge energy drain and thus requires a lot of higher quality feed, although lactation alone is pretty energy intensive.

Ixy – you say you buy cull cows and milk until they stop ….. what makes them “stop” if you’re continuing to milk? Just curious.

[Nat(wasIxy)]

Usually it’s because they have other conditions – they are culls when we get them for a reason after all. As an example, one we had had a dodgy back leg. She was relatively young and gave plenty, but wasnt thriving in a large herd so we got her and could keep a close eye on her. She would lie down in a corner and due to the leg not be able to get back up. Mostly we would have to drag her out of the corner and she’d be fine, but she did it during the night once and laid on her own head trying to get up, and we found her dead 🙁 we still miss her now!

[Nat(wasIxy)]

Miss daisy’s website – Jersey cow, calved once and milked for three years aswell as being driven over 200 miles according to the website 🙂

http://www.drivingcow.com/Home_Page.html

[Author]

Posts