Is grounding still good after a dry period?

This summer, we had a few livestock farmers with some vague complaints: more kicking, difficulty entering the robot; it was all just not quite top-notch.

We checked the grounding, and nothing unusual was immediately apparent.

It turns out that after a very dry period, the soil around the grounding rod also dries out at increasingly greater depths. And very dry soil conducts very little (leakage) current.

Solution: drive the grounding rod a few meters deeper into the ground.

In the short term: place a water hose near the grounding rod and let it pump water overnight so that it sinks into the ground close to the rod.

Once again about losing milk prematurely.

We are experiencing another unusual summer: lots of warm weather, heavy rain in some places, but too little rain in even more.

This also means that the grass, in particular, grew well this spring, absorbed a lot of fertilizer and minerals, and further in season grew very unevenly in both growth and uptake by your cows.

Especially when there is sufficient potassium in the soil or it has been topped up, there is a high chance that the silage contains quite a lot of potassium, particularly in the spring silage that may have been mowed early.
With high potassium levels, we know that minerals such as magnesium and calcium, which are also considered positive in chemistry, are absorbed less effectively. And it just so happens that these are important for the proper closing of the lock holes from the teats !

So, it is once again very important that this silage is mixed with silage harvested later in the season. And pay attention to the minerals in the silage analyses.

And how warm is the resting spot a cow has just come out of??

See also Tip of the Month – September 2021 (Under category Tips on Udder Health)

There are many hot days again this summer…

What a few hot days we had!
Did your Heat Plan work well?
Did you and your company get through it well?
What went well and what didn’t?
And regarding what didn’t go well—we are bound to have more hot days; are there solutions for this?

Are your cows receiving sufficient cooler and refreshed air?
So, is exhaled air or “feed / barn” air not just being blown around? ..

Is there sufficient fresh drinking water?

Is it pleasant to be in the robot room with plenty of clean (fresh?) air?

Is the compressor receiving sufficient cool air? Are the filters clean?

Is the cooling unit receiving sufficient clean air?

Can you adequately ventilate the technical rooms containing vacuum pumps, etc.?

Can the young cattle find shade and cooler spots?

And when grazing: let the cows ruminate in the “coolest” spot!
So, in the barn in the afternoon.
In warm weather, from approximately 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM are not times to graze cows!

And do you have another good tip for your colleagues?
Let us know.

Three teats, fourth teat present or actually not?

Do we still need to properly configure whether the fourth teat is present or not on the VMS V300?

With the VMS Classic, we know that this is very important.

Whether you have entered “present or not present” for a three-teat cow: the VMS V300 has no trouble attaching her.

However, if the fourth teat is set to “present,” after milking it wants to disinfect all teats marked as present …

And if that teat is (almost) completely gone, it doesn’t see it and, after some searching, starts spraying “blindly” and making a circle. In doing so, the camera arm sometimes touches the leg, and the cow doesn’t like that at all. And neither will you, because it uses more disinfectant and doesn’t even land on the teats as precisely as you are used to…

So with the V300, for the three teats as well, make sure to correctly enter whether the fourth teat is actually present or not (anymore).

And of course: check occasionally if the spray is landing properly on the tip of the teat!
A little clogged and it sprays next to the teats….