Milk dropping help

[janij]

Hi all. I am new to farming and milking. I have 2 jersey's and their milk is dropping rapidly. They are not rebred. One calved in Feb the other in May. They are not rebred cause it is so dry we can't sink the posts for the lane to AI. They are getting about 5.5# of feed twice a day. I am thinking this is the problem. I have no grass because of the drought. But they have all the hay they want. I am worried they will end up just drying off. The one that freshened in Feb is giving me about gallon i the am and about 1/2 in the pm. The one that freshened in May is giving about 6 qts in the am and about 1 gallon in the pm. Is there any way to get their milk back up? I am worried they will be dry well before I need to dry them off to calf. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Jani

[commonsense]

I have a Jersey who dries off at 6 months, nothing can be done about it. Can you get them some alfalfa hay? How is their condition?

We have our cows AI'd without anything special, just hook them up to the feed bunk. One of our vets was hesitant about this set-up at first, but they've gotten to know the cows better and they really are well behaved. Can you do something like that to get them re-bred?

[janij]

Their condition is really pretty good. The one who freshened in Feb was very under weight when I got her. She looks a lot better but her milk is dropping the most.
I have a squeeze shoot I could probably cox them into. But that means I have July babies next yr and July and Aug is brutal around here. 105 each day. So I need to wait til Nov to breed them any way.
I am wondering if i up the grain if they will increase or at least quit dropping.

[sammyd]

hay never produces as much milk as pasture does.
Best you can do is make sure the hay is the best you can get and then work on their grain ration.

[janij]

Don't get me started on hay. I have decided you are not a Texas farmer if you have not been totally shafted on hay this yr.
I am going to start upping the grain and see what happens. I feed a mix of 14% sweet feed, whole oats, cracked corn and alfalfa pellets in equal parts. Then I top with a couple handfuls of BOSS, kelp meal, loose mineral and a couple Tablespoons of wheat germ oil. And recommendations on changing this?

[sammyd]

Get rid of the whole oats, cows do better if they are rolled or clipped.
Get rid of the BOSS, it has a high protein but with the shell it adds more fiber and takes more to get anything done.
This is a cow not a goat.
get rid of the 14% with the other stuff you have it's redundant and not enough protein to do anything worthwhile anyway.

cracked corn for energy and a 38% pellet or soybean meal for protein.
A handful or two of kelp is OK (more than the bag recommends but we've never had a problem), less mineral usually though.

A few pounds of alfalfa pellets maybe but I have no idea what your hay tests at or what you pay for it. It may be best to do away with your hay altogether and feed alfalfa pellets instead.

[DJ in WA]

Originally Posted by commonsense

I have a Jersey who dries off at 6 months, nothing can be done about it. Can you get them some alfalfa hay? How is their condition?

We have our cows AI'd without anything special, just hook them up to the feed bunk. One of our vets was hesitant about this set-up at first, but they've gotten to know the cows better and they really are well behaved. Can you do something like that to get them re-bred?

Yeah, I've always just tied up the cow in the corner of the shed and leaned on her to keep her rear end against the wall to have her bred.

I did add a gate to swing against my latest beef cow who isn't so tame. Just used it an hour ago for breeding and worked well.

Since you only breed once a year, you can also use hay bales as a temporary way to corner them.

[francismilker]

For milk production I've never found anything better than plain ol' cracked corn and alfalfa hay. Now, that being said, do you want to have a lot of money in getting production up? Alfalfa is high dollar, the price of corn is through the roof.

[janij]

Well I either get the milk back up or buy another milker. Would I be better to just feeding them cracked corn and alfalfa hay?

[francismilker]

There's going to be alot of opinions on this question because everyone does it a little bit different. I try to feed corn and/or corn & alfalfa pellets while milking when I can find it in bulk and affordable and then give each cow about 1-2 flakes of alfalfa hay per day. I still feed pasture or grass hay to keep them full bellied.

Sometimes once milk production has curbed off you're fighting a futile efforted battle to try to feed them into milking good again. If a cow's milking off their back and losing body condition it can cost a lot of money to try and put weight back on them and still increase milk production. It could seriously be cheaper to go to a dairy sale and pick up a three quartered cow and feed her right from the start to keep production up.

[janij]

I was wondering that. I am going to up the feed for a little while and see if it goes back up at all. If not I will take them to once a day milking and just get another one. The most either one ever produced was about 3 gallons a day. A friend of mine said hers always gave 4-6 gallons. So we will see. Thanks so much for the help.

[janij]

I wanted to thank everyone for their help. I have both of their milk productions up.

[luv2farm]

Originally Posted by janij

I wanted to thank everyone for their help. I have both of their milk productions up.

Good deal!! What did you do? Just increase the corn and alfalfa?

[janij]

Yes all I did was increase the amount of food. When these bags are gone I am going to feed just the cracked corn, alfalfa pellets and alfalfa hay. The one I took to once a day milking I think in another week or so i should be able to start back milking twice a day to get her up further. We will see. I just appreciate everyone's input.