Common Problems On Dairy Farms

By Lianne Derocco


The life of a dairy farmer is not all beds of roses and great although the dairy farming industry is one among the top agricultural industries in the US. The dairy farmer has to face a lot of issues, and this is a fact. If you are one of these dairy farmers, the following may be some issues that you may have to handle.

Waste production is an issue and dairy cows are no exception as all animals produce waste. Large waste pits or lagoons are these structures built and where the cow waste is typically stored. The waste stored can become hard and solid but it is best to have this in liquefied form, thus special manure treatment is also often needed. A solid sludge layer can form on the bottom of the waste pits and lagoons if the waste is poorly treated. Attracting more flies and also odor and foaming are the results when a hard top crust forms.

To prevent these problems, some farmers use chemicals to treat the waste. However, these days there are some natural products that can be used as an agricultural waste treatment. These manure digesters include Activator Plus which eats away and liquefies a tough top crust. Agra Sphere and Lagoon Agra Sphere are easy-to-use, biodegradable spheres that you can toss into your lagoon or pit and will eat away at sludge and keep crusts from forming. Both manure treatment products contain no chemicals and use special bacteria to deal with agricultural waste.

These cows can also have their lots of individual problems. A common problem that is often encountered is infertility. For a cow to produce milk constantly there should also be production of calves. If this cow is not able to get pregnant anymore, there will also be no production of milk also. This cow will be culled, thus has to be separated from the main herd also. These are the animals that are then made a source of beef.

Mastitis is another common problem that might plague a dairy cow. This is a mammary gland infection and can be a fatal condition. Generally, the cow will be culled and then treated with antibiotics until the infection is gone and all traces of the antibiotics are gone and the milk produced is once again suitable for market.

One thing greatly taken into consideration is the amount of milk produced by a cow each day. Six gallons of milk each day is the average milk production of each cow. A cow may be culled if the milk production is already little. Lower milk production can however lead to better cow longevity, and there are studies to show this. A dairy cow may live longer and thus produce more in a longer time, compared to a cow producing seven gallons of milk a day if you are receiving only four gallons of milk a day from this cow. There are also studies showing that cows roaming in pastures and also playing music while lactating, can improve production of milk, and this is because stress in cows is related to milk production.




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