Progressive Dairyman, Editor Karen Lee – December 8, 2016

Gert Schrijver gets peak production with forage quality, transition cow management

Gert Schrijver and his wife, Sonja, started Mars Dairy near Stettler, Alberta, in 1996 after immigrating from the Netherlands. At the time, they were milking 50 cows. Today, they have 230 cows (370 kilograms of quota), 260 heifers and 850 acres. They also recently achieved the highest milk production in Alberta at more than 14,000 litres of milk per cow in 305 days.

His goal is to produce 60,000 litres in four lactations with 3.8 fat and a 14-month calving interval, Schrijver said during a presentation this September at the Progressive Dairy Operators (PDO) banquet in Woodstock, Ontario.

The herd is milked three times a day and its somatic cell count varies between 100,000 and 150,000. The farm has a 23 percent cull rate.

Schrijver attributed seven different factors to the farm’s success in production. The two main factors are transition management and forage quality, and the other factors include feedbunk management, sand bedding for cow comfort and udder health, heifer raising, labour and conformation.

1. Transition management

“Transition is probably the number one factor that we achieved high peak milk,” Schrijver said. “If it’s all about dry matter intake, we really want to maximize dry matter intake through forage quality, cow comfort, feedbunk management and eliminate heat stress.”

He keeps all of his dry cows in one barn with cooling ventilation for heat stress and to bring fresh air into the barn. There are three pens – far-off, close-up and fresh. “We try to move them as less as possible,” he said.

To eliminate overcrowding, all pens have 400 square feet per cow, and the close-up pen has 3 feet of bunkspace per cow. “The interesting thing when you feed dry cows is they come eat all at once,” he said. “You can’t have overcrowding with dry cows. That’s going to cost you in peak milk the next lactation.”

Fresh cows are milked twice a day the first week. “The first week we focus on dry matter intake and that’s all. We don’t want to push our cows for milk production the first week,” Schrijver said. After that week, they are moved to the freestall and begin milking three times a day.

All dry cows are fed the same ration, and he aims for dry matter intake between 15 and 16 kilograms in the dry period. At the time, Schrijver said he would like to install a body condition score camera in his barn to help monitor dry matter intakes with dry cows.

After calving, the cows are given a calcium bolus and are fed a lot of hay for a couple of days. Their temperature is checked regularly.

2. Forage quality

The herd has an average dry matter intake of 26 kilograms. Sixty percent of the ration is forage and 60 percent of the forage is barley silage.

“We’ve got a lot of land available for barley silage, so right now we have about 18 months of silage in the pits,” Schrijver said.

3. Feedbunk management

Schrijver uses an automatic feed pusher to keep feed in front of the cows. He also revamped his feedbunk by removing the neck rail, which he said was a “huge restriction for dry matter intake.”

4. Sand bedding for cow comfort and udder health

In 2015, the farm switched to sand bedding. “Sand bedding made a huge change for us,” Schrijver said.

The two main problems they had were mastitis and lameness. Now, this summer, they only treated three cows for mastitis and used a lot less antibiotics. The lameness also made huge improvements.

In switching to sand, they adjusted the freestalls, moving the neck rail all the way forward. They don’t use a brisket board and just fill the stalls with sand every four or five days. “That is what keeps the cows in position in the freestalls,” he said, “but we have to keep the stalls full.”

They also removed their manure scrapers and bought a vacuum truck to remove the manure from the barn and dump it in the lagoon. Following good agitation, he said they were able to put most of the sand and manure out on the field through a drag hose and injection.

“Having no manure scrapers made a huge difference on digital dermatitis on our farm,” Schrijver said. “I think we can pretty much eliminate [our footbath protocols] right now, so it will save us a lot of money on products.”

5. Heifer raising

Calves are fed 4 litres of milk a day and are given fresh water twice a day. By the time the calves are weaned, they are consuming 5 kilograms of calf starter.

“I know a lot of farms that feed 8 to 10 litres of milk, but I don’t see it back in the 2-year-olds and I don’t see it back in the milk production,” he said.

Schrijver continued, “With this 4 litres and raising them on calf starter for rumen development, we are able to achieve 12,800 litres of milk production with 2-year-olds.”

Seven or eight years ago, they put their heifers on hay. Previously, they were feeding TMR with barley silage, but the heifers were over conditioned. Now they are fed hay until four months before calving. “It really increases their frame and their udder texture,” he said. “You can even see it on our classification scores. When we started, our classification almost jumped two points with our 2-year-olds.”

6. Labour

The first employee the Schrijvers hired 13 years ago is now their herd manager. “I take a lot of pride in that that we were able to hire an employee from Europe; we trained him and he made it to our herd manager,” Schrijver said.

Having to compete with the oil fields for labour in Alberta, he has to pay employees quite a bit, but it gives him peace of mind to know who is running his farm when he is gone.

7. Conformation

The farm’s genetics for milk and protein is below the national average, which he attributed to mainly breeding for type.

“Genetics for milk production only works if all of the management factors on your farm are 100 percent,” Schrijver said. “You may as well focus on breeding for type and work on your management factors to increase peak milk.”

Almost 50 percent of the herd is classified Very Good or better. “I think we learn more about breeding cows from classifiers than anybody else. It’s a huge management tool on our farm, and it’s a huge motivator for my herd manager also,” he said.

Schrijver closely watches these seven factors to achieve longevity, which he views as reaching optimal milk production for every year the cow is in his herd.