How to reach the optimal number of lactations in a dairy cow

Read more about cow lifespan ✓ Improve lifetime daily yield ✓ Selko feed additives for dairy cattle

What's the average lifespan of a cow? Learn how to expand the cow lifespan to improve Lifetime Daily Yield and dairy farm profits.

In most countries, dairy cows reach less than 3 lactations. Improving transition management would create opportinities to keep cows longer. A simple economic model looking at opportunity costs suggests the optimal number of lactations is 4-5. If culling decisions would take an estimation of future productivity into account, less older cows would be pushed out of the herd by replacement heifers simply because those are available.

To reach 5 lactations, dairy cows need a place to eat, a place to rest and a stress-free calving line. This will improve dairy cow health and welfare and will result in sustainable dairy farming operations.

Lifetime Daily Yield is defined as the total lifetime production divided by the total days of life, from birth to culling. It can be used to compare performance between farms. Use the Serlko Profit Calculator to identify your targets for profitable and sustainable dairy farming.

Reducing the age at first calving, while still reaching rearing targets, will help to improve Lifetime Daily Yield because heifers will start producing at an earlier age. It has also been demonstrated that heifers that calve at 22 to 24 months have optimal fertility and maximum milk yield in their first lactation, resulting in a further improvement of Lifetime Daily Yield.

Want to increase milk production per lactation? Discover science-backed ways to sustainably increase peak milk production.

Fertility of a farm has a direct impact on age at first calving and on the calving interval. With fertility being an important reason for culling, it also has an impact on the number of lactations of a dairy cow. An important fertility parameter is the calving interval. Learn more about improving fertility on your farm via the HealthyLife programme for sustainable dairy farming.

Aim should be to reach at least 5 lactations per cow. To achieve this, the involuntary culling rate in heifers should be below 15% whereas the involuntary culling rate of the herd should be below 5%.

Dairy feed producers want to know what the carbon footprint of producing their feeds is. The LCA for the 3 Selko IntelliBond products will provide dairy feed producers with an independent verification on the CO₂eq number of their trace mineral source, enabling them to include this number into calculation of the total CO₂eq number of the dairy feeds they produce for dairy farmers.

At turnout, when they hit spring grass, keep dairy cows milking as well as possible with high milk quality. Ensure dairy cows are in calf and that calving intervals are not dragging out as this will have implications for the next lactation. Keep dairy cattle healthy and ensure they are not lame, making them ready to graze. Find out more about tuning the diet of a dairy herd at turnout.

Responsible trace mineral management is important because it is critical to overall health of the animal. Under supply of trace minerals in dairy cows can result in poor health, performance and fertility. Over supply of trace minerals in dairy cows can result excretion of metal ions in the environment.