Dairy farms involved in a Farming Connect project to tackle issues that impact on milk quality achieved a milk price uplift of up to 4p/litre after applying recommended changes.
Twenty-eight First Milk suppliers, with herds ranging in size from 70 to 1000 cows, were involved in the project, led by Farming Connect and run in association with Kite Consulting and Advance Milking. Farming Connect is delivered by Menter a Busnes and Lantra Wales, and funded by the Welsh Government and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
Some of the farms had Bactoscan problems or udder health issues in their herds, while others had no recent history; they wanted to be involved to review the risk factors.
The businesses that made changes recommended by the team at Advance Milking saw revenue from milk increase from between 0.1p/litre and 4p/litre.
Tom Greenham, of Advance Milking, said farms with problems at the start of the project that implemented recommended interventions saw a mean Bactoscan improvement of 37 units, compared to the farms that did not introduce the changes. This alone, Mr Greenham calculated, equated to +1.35p/litre over the six-month period following the visit .
“This would amount to £13,500 a year for a 1m-litre producer, and hence gives a payback of 13:1, compared to the cost per farm of being involved with the project,’’ he said.
There were further benefits for farmers who implemented udder health advice – realising a somatic cell count (SCC) reduction of 48,000 cells/ml on average, which equated to +0.54p/litre over the six-month period, and an additional 0.49kg milk/cow/day. This is equivalent to a project payback of 11:1.
The project used a risk-based analysis approach, to identify and remove limitations to milk quality performance at a one-off half-day visit. Bulk tank SCC and Bactoscan results were monitored for six months afterwards.
Mr Greenham said all the farms, even those whose Bactoscan levels were low overall, had some areas of poor performance. However, it was clear that the fewer ‘risk factors’ a farm had, the less likely it was to have an elevated Bactoscan.
“Farms with just a small number of risk factors had either no problem, or just seasonal Bactoscan problems, but those with a larger number of risk factors had Bactoscan problems of multiple origins – environment, machine and bulk tank,’’ Mr Greenham observed.
The majority of farms involved in the project had a hygienic milking process, accurate wash volume, concentration and temperature, and good chemical contact with the internal surfaces of the milk pipes. However, only six had good cow cleanliness, adequate pre-milking teat preparation and adequate milk cooling, and just three had adequate tank washing.
The project took place in the summer of 2021, at a time when UK data showed a SCC deterioration of +35,000 cells/ml over the project period. This was largely as a result of exceptionally hot weather in July and August, causing heat stress and high environmental bacterial challenges.
“In line with this trend, the farms involved in this project that did not implement any changes had an increase of +30,000 cells/ml,’’ Mr Greenham reported.
“This makes it all the more impressive that those farms that implemented the advised changes achieved a reduction in SCC.’’
PANEL
Bactoscan interventions
The bulk tank wash regime was the most common area of concern on the farms; 12 were advised to review this.
Just slightly lower in the list was serving the milk-cooling apparatus and monitoring the speed of cooling, which was recommended to 11 farms. Nine farms were advised to service the boiler and thermostat and alter the water temperature for wash fluid.
For six farms, the need to repair or replace worn consumables on the milking machine, to
review slurry management in passageways and loafing areas, and increasing the volume of fluid used in the circulation wash were on the list.
Increasing the frequency of milkstone remover use, performing a second proper chemical wash after the afternoon milking (rather than just rinsing and altering concentrations of solutions used in circulation wash) was recommended on five farms.
Other recommendations – but to fewer farms – were to alter the air injection settings to improve chemical contact within the main milk line, improve building ventilation, service the autowash system for the bulk silo, discuss collection times with their haulier to reduce disruption to silo cleaning, and to sample borehole water for bacteriology.
Somatic cell count interventions
Overmilking was the most common problem identified, with 18 farms advised to alter automatic cluster removal settings.
Twelve were advised to review dry cow therapy with their routine vet, due to existing protocols being unsuitable for the current herd situation; in most cases, this was linked to inappropriate use of selective dry cow therapy.
Pre-milking teat disinfection was another common area that demonstrated room for improvement, with 10 farms advised to alter this management step. Linked to this was the recommendation for six herds to adapt their pre-milking routine to improve stimulation of milk let-down.
Altering the milk path to reduce resistance to flow in the milking machine was recommended for eight herds, whilst it was suggested that six herds consider different milking liners.
A further six herds were advised to review their culling policy for udder health.
Advance Milking also highlighted limitations in cow housing and grazing environments. For five businesses, this involved adjusting cubicle dimensions to improving lying position, while hygiene and slurry management, poaching of cow tracks and gateways and pasture rotation was an issue on numerous farms within the project.
This project has received funding through the Welsh Government Rural Communities - Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government.