With all the things going on around your dairy, have you ever thought about whether cows actually like being milked? How would you know if they were happy or unhappy with the milking process?

Advanced milking technology provides more data points than many dairies are able to use in their day-to-day routines and management decisions.

How do you use the mountain of information that is at your fingertips every month? How do you find the next opportunity or efficiency in the data you collect? Very few dairy farms have systems in place to measure more information than milk production. Looking at data once in a while will not lead you in a positive direction.

Of all the performance indicators you can monitor on the dairy, fresh cow performance ranks near the top, since the start of the lactation really determines the rest of the lactation.

The lactation curve of milk production on some farms can be complicated. The question of how we get more production from cows comes up in many conversations between nutritionists and their producer customers. A “normal” lactation curve can be broken down to some simple basic principles.

Over the years I’ve had the privilege of working with and visiting a number of herds across the country that were producing 100 pounds of milk or more per cow per day. What are the secrets of these herds with a bulk tank average that mirrors high-group production levels for many herds?

“Doc, when you come to visit next week, I want to talk about what I can do to get my cows to produce 20 more pounds of milk per day by the year 2020,” said a dairyman. On the day the producer called, his cows averaged 104 pounds of milk in the tank.

Herd health morning ... cows are lined up and the vet is putting on a palpation sleeve. In your hand, a clipboard with the list of bred cows to check ... and off you go down the alley. “1520, 41 days ... ”