8 October 2018
Bedding can be a considerable overhead on dairy systems but price alone must not dictate the material of choice.
Alternative beddings ranging from paper and sawdust to sand and woodchip are being used successfully on Welsh dairy farms.
At Pelcomb Farm, near Haverfordwest, brothers Peter and Mike Smith use recycled manure solids (RMS) to bed their herd of 450 Holstein cows.
During a joint Farming Connect and AHDB Dairy open day at the farm, specialist dairy vet Professor Andrew Bradley said most bedding materials can be made to work in dairy systems but management routines must be tailored to suit the product if milk quality and cow comfort challenges are to be avoided.
Cows ideally lie for 12-14 hours a day therefore it is important to provide a lying surface which encourages these lying times. Bedding also has a big impact on udder health, milk quality and animal health.
A bedding material that doesn’t support bacterial growth is the ideal, and it should also be comfortable for cows, safe for both cows and people and legal to use, advised Professor Bradley of Quality Milk Management Services (QMMS).
“It can be tempting to use cheap by-products but if they don’t comply with environmental regulations or compromise animal health they will be costly in the longer term,’’ he said.
“You might for instance be offered woodchip at a very cheap price but if it is manufactured from broken up pallets or kitchens and contains metal it can cause lameness.
“Waste materials such as plasterboard are also cheap but they will breach environmental regulations if you spread them on farmland and will cost you a lot of money if you have to dispose of it as waste.’’
Although some materials have higher bacterial counts than others, transfer from bedding to milk can be prevented with appropriate teat preparation of milking routine, he said.
“The parlour routine needs to be adapted according to the material being used,’’ said Professor Bradley, who is affiliated to the University of Nottingham.
When cows present for milking, he recommends stripping, dipping and drying teats in groupings of 6-8 cows before applying clusters.
Some materials, notably RMS and wood products, carrying a risk of Klebsiella mastitis, a persistent and long term infection, but this can be controlled with pre-dipping and good parlour hygiene, said Professor Bradley.
RMS cannot be used if a farm has bovine TB or salmonella.
At Pelcomb Farm, RMS replaced sawdust as a bedding material when the business installed a screw press slurry separator.
RMS has reduced costs and improved cow comfort and there has been no impact on milk quality, said Peter Smith, who farms 650 acres with his brother, Mike, and parents.
The bedding is used in a deep layer and topped up with a dispenser every day. To prevent the material from being shed into the passageways, tyres have been placed in the stalls.
“It is an idea we saw at another farm and it makes a big difference to the amount of material that falls off the beds. The bedding is deep so it sits on top of the tyres,’’ said Peter.
Since the introduction of RMS cows will happily lie in any cubicle stall.
The closed herd is currently producing an annual milk yield average of around 9,000 litres at 4.1% butterfat and 3.4% protein with milk sold to First Milk. Somatic cell count is currently averaging 180,000 cells/ml.
Although bedding influences cow comfort and health so too does cubicle design.
David Ball, Environment and Buildings Senior Manager at AHDB, said the surface should be soft, well-cushioned and dry.
He encourages farmers to conduct a ‘kneel and knuckle test’. “Stand at the back of the cubicle stall where the cow is going to stand. Drop on your knees and rub your hands across the top of the bedding to see how soft it is. If the skin on your hands is intact and the knees of your trousers are clean and dry that indicates a good lying surface.’’
The size of the lying area will depend on the size of cows, ranging between 1150-1200mm width, 1750-1850mm length, 750-900mm lunge space and 1200-1600mm neck rail height.
“It’s difficult to be precise about dimensions as these will depend on the size of the cow but making observations about how the cows use and lie in cubicles will give important clues about cubicle acceptability,’’ Mr Ball advised.
“Lunge space should for example be around 40% of the bed length. If they haven’t got that space they won’t lie comfortably, correctly or for as long as they should,’’ he said.
At any one time, 70% of cows should be lying down. “When you walk in a shed seven of the first 10 cows you see should be lying down,’’ said Mr Ball.
In Wales, Farming Connect offers farm businesses registered with the service fully funded one-to-one clinics on a variety of topics including cow signals.
Abigail James, Farming Connect South West Wales Dairy Technical Officer, said striking the balance between cow comfort, welfare, cleanliness and cost can be difficult, especially as materials become more expensive.
“Teat contact with bedding material is inevitable and the material of choice can have a huge impact on bacterial loading,’’ she said.