September 8,2010

Made a return visit to a client in County Waterford yesterday with a cow with quads.  First time diagnosed a cow carrying quads.  Previously diagnosed a cow carrying triplets in the same area. The cow had triplets.  In this situation, the cow is carrying quads-they are 2 males and 2 females and are 75 days old.  The animal will now be prepared on a diet for increasing BCS up to 7 months of pregnancy to enable her to go through to term.

Tail docking in cattle is now banned and has been for a number of years. The practise is being enforced by the introduction of penalties where people have been discovered using the practise. Therefore, it has to be a practise which has to be disccontinued on face of penalties of seeing the farm payment cut.

September 7, 2010

On calls in County Kerry. All the dairy farmers request all ealry morning calls here as milk deliveries have to sent to a central depot. This central depot is one of the few remaining in the country with Lee Strand supplying fresh milk on a daily basis.

End of fertility scan on herds outside Tralee. The clients are blaming the type of cow they have in terms of breeding.  The Holstein is bred for milk and not for fertility. Major issue amongst these individuals is how to bring back fertility without having to use the Jersey cow. It will be a slow process as some individuals want to use British Friesian which will infuse a certain element of highbrid figure. This will replace genetic potential for milk production in association with improved fertility in the herd. There has to be a balance between calving to pregnancy interval and the volumes of milk production through milk produced.