Tip of the Month – September 2023

Teach heifers for calving barn system and routes?

Especially with controlled cow traffic, it can be useful to get the heifers before calving used to the routes, habits and rations in the barn with dairy cattle.
But if, for example, they are already fed in the milking robot, they will be even more frightened by the robot arm after calving, with the result that they are more reluctant to visit the robot during the first few days.

So learning the routes and any selection gates is enough.

Take them out of the dairy group at least two weeks before calving, then they should be able to prepare for calving in peace, preferably in a straw pen / calving area, and not have to worry about bossy cows in the dairy group.