What’s lurking in your sand-bedded stalls? [PROGRESSIVE DAIRY article]

For all of the daily and weekly maintenance dairy farmers do to keep sand-bedded stalls clean, there may still be “lost items” (liked leaked milk, urine and liquid manure) lurking beneath the surface that present dangers to your cows.

The most difficult thing we see is that sand bedding becomes a project in and of itself. A well-managed sand stall requires intense levels of stall care. You cannot miss a day, regardless of how the day to day demands of the farm change during busy seasons, staffing changes, sand supply changes, budget shortfalls and weather fluctuations.

In order to ensure there aren’t dangers lurking beneath the surface, you have to fully commit to managing sand, no matter what the other factors are, to keep your cows safe and comfortable.

To have the “right” sand. The Dairyland Initiative suggests targets for ideal sand would be:

• Dry matter greater than 95 percent, organic matter content less than 4 percent

• Not too coarse and not too fine sand granular size (mason or concrete)

Have staff and time allotted to do the daily and weekly maintenance required:

• Level the top 3 to 4 inches and remove manure-laden sand during each milking.

• Add sand twice a week with at least 50 pounds (23 kilograms) of sand used per stall per day.

• Be mindful this may add additional hours to a current employee’s job or require additional staff.

Have the equipment in working order necessary to do the maintenance required:

• In smaller herds, leveling and aerating the beds can be done with hand tools, while others will choose a groomer with teeth no longer than the recommended 4 inches.

• This will require at least one skid steer.

• The additional equipment will need ongoing fuel and maintenance to function properly.

And that’s not all. Watch out for the ‘compaction zone’

Regardless of the type of sand used, producers should be aware of the “compaction zone.” Fine sand packs more quickly. According to The Dairyland Initiative, “The compaction zone [is] below the surface of the top layer of sand [and] should be monitored to see if it is becoming as hard as concrete. If this gets to within 1 to 2 inches of the point of the rear curb, it is time to remove the rear third of the bed and replace it with fresh uncontaminated sand.”

With a compaction zone as hard as concrete, your sand stalls could be stealing quarters from your pocket due to decreased cow comfort.

Environmental contamination

Sand itself is said to be “inorganic,” as it does not support bacterial growth. However, organic material and liquid bonds to the surface of each particle of sand as it is dug up from the ground, used in the barn and transferred through a sand-manure separation system.

Also, the cow itself has bacteria on its skin. Klebsiella spp., coliforms, E. coli, Streptococcus dysgalactiae, Enterococcus spp. and other bacteria live in the gut, get on the cow’s body and are transferred to the sand. Cows also urinate, defecate and leak milk, which supports bacterial growth.

The Dairyland Initiative recommends bacterial counts of the following:

• Fresh bedding total count: less than 5,000 colony-forming units per milliliter, which is a measure of viable bacterial or fungal cells present

• Used bedding total count: less than 1 to 2 million colony-forming units per milliliter (mostly streptococci)

• Coliform count in used bedding: less than 100,000 colony-forming units per milliliter

Spring cleaning

Whether we like it or not, spring cleaning should be done twice a year. That means you should remove all of the sand in (at least) the back third of your stalls twice a year.

Put it on the calendar. Don’t ignore the reminders. Tie employee vacation approvals or bonus checks to getting the job done. Your cows are counting on you.

If you find your coliform count in the bedding is 100,000 colony-forming units per milliliter or greater, you need to take measures to get out the contaminated sand and get fresh sand in.

If you use fine sand, check more regularly for compaction. You’re not investing in sand bedding to have the equivalent of concrete under your cows.

Where can you fine-tune your operation? When is the last time you dug out the back third of your stalls and replaced with new sand? What is lurking beneath your cows’ udders?  

Each farm is its own complex, interconnected system. Everything needs to fit together, there are multiple ways to arrange the farm system, and by stepping back and looking at multiple systems in tandem, the entire farm may see improvements with a few adjustments. Sand bedding has many demands every week, every month and every season.

If sand bedding isn’t the best choice for your farm, DCC Waterbeds provide a comfortable option for your cows while decreasing the demands on labor and equipment for your farm. Jason Esser (Wisconsin) explains why he thinks sand bedding will be a problem in the long run.

To read more, visit the article link at Progressive Dairy.

Is your top bedding doing more harm than good?

DCC Waterbeds require a small amount of top bedding to keep the beds dry and your dairy cows comfortable.

You spend countless hours of labor and sourcing to find the best top bedding to keep your dairy cows clean and comfortable. All top bedding materials used are not created equally. And some can actually do more harm than good.

Top bedding on a mattress or waterbed is used to reduce the bacteria and moisture that can wreak havoc on vulnerable udders and to provide comfort for the resting cow. Before sprinkling that next scoop of bedding in a stall, consider whether it is helping or hurting the cow.

Grab a handful of bedding and ask yourself these three questions:

1. Do any sharp objects poke your hand?

2. Is the top bedding wet?

3. How much top bedding is on the bed?

1. Do any sharp objects poke your hand?

When you squeeze a handful of bedding, does it hurt your hand? If it’s poking you, it is also poking the cow. This can cause problems with the udder, teats and legs. Being poked by the top bedding might irritate her pressure points or be a nuisance for the cow. Eliminating a top bedding stress for the cow will pay you dividends.

Depending on the material, there may be a simple solution. Perhaps straw can be chopped finer, or the sawdust provider can provide a different grade with fewer rough particles or a different wood source.

If you’re going to great lengths to eliminate stress for the cow in other areas of the farm, make sure you’re checking what impact the top bedding might have for the cow.

2. Is the top bedding wet?

Some materials like paper mill byproduct or dried manure solids are moist and may put your cow at risk of bacterial exposure. You should ask your paper mill supplier if you are able to get a drier product. If you are using dried manure solids, check with your separator supplier to see if your machine is performing correctly or if you can adjust the settings to get drier manure.

If the bedding is excessively wet or soiled after it’s in the stalls, examine stall setup and protocol. What is the maintenance procedure to keep the stalls clean and dry?

It’s also possible the problem is in the stall design. Check cow positioning within the stall. Is the neckrail positioned correctly? Are you using a brisket locator or relying on a mound of bedding at the front of the stall? Is there something out of line with manure management, such as a broken scraper or skid steer? Are stalls being maintained to your standards? Don’t spend time, money and energy improving top bedding if there are other reasons stalls are not clean and dry.

3. How much top bedding is on the bed?

Besides the hardness of the surface, consider why you are using that amount of top bedding. Are large and small cows together in the same pens? If so, then small cows will have more space to move in the stalls, and that means that they’re likely to make the stalls messier. In this case, more top bedding may be needed to dry up the added moisture in the stalls. Do you have a reliable and consistent supply of top bedding? If so, you may choose to use more because supply is not a concern. Are mattress covers ripped or has the foam layer started to pack? If mats are no longer providing adequate cow comfort, add more top bedding to provide additional comfort.

If you’re using top bedding simply for drying the stall surface, look at the amount of bedding, frequency and type of bedding to see if there’s any place to make adjustments without impacting cow comfort.

Dan Denman, The Robotic Dairyman, explains why he uses sawdust as top bedding on his DCC Waterbeds in this short video.

If you’d like to see more, check out this archived Progressive Dairy article here.

[Podcast] Anna Hinchley: Designing her own robot barn [PROGRESSIVE DAIRY]

From Progressive Publishing

PROGRESSIVE DAIRY published August 4, 2020

In this episode, we hear from 22-year-old dairy farmer Anna Hinchley. Her desire to return to her family’s dairy in Cambridge, Wisconsin, after graduating prompted her parents to move forward with expanding the herd and upgrading to automated milking. Anna has been involved in every step of the barn design process. Hear about the key features of her robot barn here.

I’m here today with Anna Hinchley at Hinchley’s Dairy Farm near Cambridge, Wisconsin. 

Anna is a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and she has now returned to the farm to officially begin her career as a dairy farmer. 

But she won’t be milking 140 cows in a 7-cow tie-stall barn like the days of her youth. The Hinchleys constructed an automated milking facility last year with four robots to handle around 240 milking cows. 

Anna was very involved in the design and layout of the facility that she now works in every day.

She is going to give us a deep-dive into the details of this barn design and how it not only leverages efficiency and technology, but also lends to the Hinchley’s long-time agritourism business.

With that, let’s hear from Anna.

3 common myths about stall use [Progressive Dairy article]

PUBLISHED BY PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING

July 19, 2020

[Article link here.]

No one wants to see cows standing when they should be lying comfortably in their stalls, making milk and resting.

Why do cows sometimes refuse to lie down in the stalls? It may be easy to jump to the conclusion that the stall surface isn’t comfortable, but there’s often more to the story than what’s at the base of the stall.

The following are three common back barn beliefs, or myths, that don’t tell the whole story. Here are a few analogies to make the points; the examples are meant to provide a little laugh but also some food for thought.

Myth 1: Cows stand instead of lie down because the stall surface is uncomfortable

Cows standing because they are not comfortable on the stall surface is a possibility. However, other factors are often overlooked. Let’s look at neck rail positioning in this scenario:

It’s snowing outside and zero degrees. There is a 6-foot-tall woman standing outside. The door is 5 feet, 9 inches high.

Is the woman standing outside the door because the chair she has to sit on in the room inside isn’t comfortable? Possibly.

However, it’s also possible that she is standing outside for a few other reasons:

1. She hasn’t figured out how to bend down far enough to get through the short door frame.

2. Last time, she didn’t bend down far enough, so she whacked her head – and she remembers how that hurt, so she’s trying to figure out how to not go through that pain again.

3. She likes the cold for a little bit, especially to digest after eating a big dinner, so she’s not ready to go in yet.

4. The boss is in the room, and she doesn’t want to talk to her. She would rather stand in the snow than deal with the boss.

We see this with cows, too.

The neck rail is so far back in the stall (to help with stall cleanliness and prevent them from manuring in the stall), the cow can’t get in the stall.

This has nothing to do with the comfort of the stall. It has to do with them not being able to get in the stall. The neck rail positioning is helping the management of the stall, not the comfort for the cow.

The cows are not necessarily saying they are uncomfortable on the available beds. It could as easily be they are uncomfortable in the available stall. It may have nothing to do with the surface lying area at all.

Myth 2: The cow’s choice of stall surface will tell you which option is most comfortable

Cow behavior can be observed, but could there be other factors at play with cow choice?

Let’s say your pantry is filled with 100 bars of chocolate. That’s the way it’s always been. You have a steady supply of chocolate bars, and you never have to think about it. No one complains; life is grand.

Then one day your doctor consults with you and says, “Seems like your son has gained a few pounds. You should think about including some fruit in his diet – that would help him improve his health.”

You take the doctor’s advice, but you also believe your son will make the right decision and tell you what he prefers by his choice. You decide you’re going to let your son choose.

So instead of 100 bars of chocolate, you swap out 10 chocolate bars for 10 apples. You have 90 chocolate bars and 10 apples. What do you think your son will choose? The apple is sweet and crunchy and delicious – why wouldn’t he choose the apple? Does that mean the apple is not healthy? Does that mean the apple will not provide him nourishment? Is it the apple’s “fault” your son did not choose it?

Whether the cows “choose” something may not have anything to do with that thing. It’s possible their choice is hurting them rather than helping them.

Another thing to consider is that when producers try something, for example, and change 10 stalls, it can often be the ones in the least-desirable location. Imagine those 10 apples on the top shelf. Your son can’t even see them, let alone reach them. He doesn’t choose the apple. What is he actually telling you versus what assumptions are you making about what he’s telling you?

If we gave cows free choice on their feed, they would eat all the grain and not the TMR mixture. We don’t feed cows free choice anymore, so why do we look for cows to show us what “free choice” for bedding they prefer?

Myth 3: When cows lie diagonal, that means the stall surface isn’t comfortable

The stall surface isn’t the only factor that plays into a cow’s choice to lie crossways. Stall comfort and obstructions are major influencers as well.

Try this exercise: Sit in your chair with your knees against the wall. Try it; you’ll be surprised.

What happens when you get up sitting next to the wall? If you’re 20 (or when you were 20), you may be able to pop right up and maneuver around the wall in front of you without any trouble. It doesn’t seem like a problem. But what are you teaching yourself? The chair isn’t comfortable enough. You’d rather stand and walk around for a few more minutes than have to deal with the wall. Your weight is distributed funny when you get up and puts unnecessary pressure on your knee or hip. You start to wear down your body parts.

How about if you’re in your 30s, 40s or 50s? You may have less “pop right up” and experience more trouble adjusting yourself in rising from the seated position with a chair so close to the wall. You experience the same – standing, walking, weight distribution issues as you did in your 20s.

If you won’t try the chair exercise, why not? It’s not practical or comfortable, so why would you do it?

When we don’t provide the lunge space necessary for cows, we’re asking the cows to do just that: Sit in a chair with her knees against the wall each time she lies down.

Cows experience this challenge of getting up when they have something in their lunge space. It could be a wall because the stalls are too short, or perhaps the cows have outgrown the space for the stall. The obstruction could even be another cow’s head because the head-to-head is too narrow.

Do your cows have the lunge space they need to get up with ease?

Dan Sullivan, a business leader, says, “The eyes only see and our ears only hear what our brain is looking for.”

• What objective criteria are you using to track and monitor your thinking?

• Do you always consult with the same person or group?

• What could someone else’s opinion offer to your farm and practices?

It is human nature to see what we’re already looking for and support the decisions we’ve already made. We have to fight that natural instinct to grow and challenge ourselves.