Attention Maizefarmer

[Issangeorge]

Maizefarmer, as you know I have been reading all your posts and getting a real education from them. I searched for your original farming posts, but after an hour of searching I could not find them, so I am now starting a new thread. I am very interested in growing Makua and as soon as I can find seeds I will start germinating them with the idea of planting one rai.

I am also interested in dairy farming, I don't think I ever will because there is not a co-op in my area, however the Tamboon Administration next to me is thinking of starting one, so I am researching all I can just incase. I have a few questions that either you did not explain in your posts or they went unobserved by me. One in one post you said; "Wet season average for the last 3 years for dry season is 19.36 and for wet is 17.84kg." and in another you said; "For what it’s worth – we milked 139 head this morning in 2hrs 23minutes and got 1798litres (of which 112 litre is going no-where because those cows are having anti-biotics at the moment)." you then went on and said that morning is 10-12% higher than afternoon, so for that day your yield would have been; 24.31 litres per cow - 112 that was no good or about

22.8 litres, which works out to around 23.4 kgs. This is quite the difference in yields. Is this because the first one was taking into account when your cows are dry, and how many days are they dry for?

I guess that was two questions so the third and fourth; what is dry matter and how many kilograms a day do your cows eat? Thanks again for your great info. Issangeorge.

[Maizefarmer]

mmmm.....ISANGEORGE - I am strugling to understand the question you are asking me - its a bit tongue twisted!

Lets see if I can work this out.

The differances you have noticed is down to the point in the lactation cycle that most of the cows were at when I posted that statement. You will find that when you milk a cow its greatest milk production will occur shortly after the cow has given birth to a calf - in fact it tends to increase day after day for a period of time, and then slowly starts to trail off.

The figures I posted for that day were for a period of time that was shortly after a lot of cows had calved - and in fact their milk yields were still rising at the time - it was about a month after I had had a lot of calves produced. That was why the figures were so much higher than average.

If I was to repeat that statement today the figures would be 143 head milked today. Morning yield was 1746 liters - we are now moving away from the calving period and yields wil start to drop slowly.

AS you would have undertsood from your reading this is perfectly natural, and is precisely why you have to keep your cows calving i.e. if they don't calve on a regular basis, like all mammals their milk production slowly drys up. You'd be suprized the amount of Thai's I have met who just do not understand cows need to have a calf to produce milk. They have this idea that cows are "made" to produce milk and produce it all the time!!!!

er............ I trust you knew this??

Okay - onto to Dry Matter - what is it?

In simple terms the terminology is used by cattle farmers to understand just how much nutrient the cow is consuming. T

Take the following as an example:

I give 2 cows each 100kg of hay to eat everyday for a month. After one month assuming all other factors are equal, I am noticing that Cow 1 is putting on weight well, but Cow 2 is putting on weight much slower. Neither is sick - they are both in good health and they are both the same age. As I said we are assuming all other factors are equal. So just what is going on here?

Well I should have mentioned something else. It is that the hay fed to Cow 1 comes from a different supplier to that fed to Cow 2.

I now take a small 100garm sample of the hay fed to Cow 1 and a similar 100gram sample from Cow 2's hay supply to analysis. I mash it all up with a pestal & mortor.

I then take each 100gram sample and dry in off in a glass bowl in a micro wave.

I now weigh the samples and see that sample 1 weighs 96 grams and sample 2 weighs 76grams.

Aaah - now the relivance of "dry matter" becomes important.

It explains why Cow 1 is getting fat and Cow 2 is not getting fact - its simply becaue Cow 1's hay consisted of 96% food and 4% water, but poor old Cow 2, although it was getting fed the same quantity, it was actually only getting 76% as food and 24% of it as water - which explains why Cow 1 was getting fatter - it was getting more food despite been feed the same weight of hay.

In a nutshell, that is dry matter - and that is why it is so important: you need to know how much of what you are feeding to a cow is "food" and how much is moisture or water

When you ask me how much dry matter are the cows eating per day, I can answer that question because it all depends on exctly what type of food they are eating and what the moisture, protein and nutrient content of that food is.

For example (and let me just say hear right now - we are talking about dry matter - not about moisture content - we have already deal't with that), if they were eat "dry matter" in the form of maize they would need to eat X amount to get 100% of the protien they required on a daily basis. However if the "dry matter" was cassava, then they would need to eat Y amount to get 100% of the protein they required on a daily basis, because both those types of feed have different amounts of moisture, protein and nutrient.

So there are 2 parameters you have left out of your question before I can answer it.

- the first is, what does the "dry matter" consist of i.e. what type of food are you asking me about?

- the second is, how old is the animal we are talking about? i.e. the older and bigger it is the more it will eat.

When those parameters are incldued in the question, then it can be answered.

In any artical about Dry Matter that you will read, it will always relate the dry matter percentage that is given to some or other type of crop or food. Just by its self a dry matter figure is of very limited value, if indeed any.

Trust this explains the basics of "Dry Matter"

...... time for some coffee and then I am off to milk the cows.

Tim

[Issangeorge]

Maizefarmer, thanks again for the valuable information, now I understand what dry matter is. From your post I get the impression that when you posted "Wet season average for the last 3 years for dry season is 19.36 and for wet is 17.84kg." that was an average yield over a year period per cow. I can't really tell you the age of cows, since I don't have any yet, or at least milkers, we have some "Thai cows" which are being raised in the typical Thai fashion, I am trying to change this somewhat but old ways die hard. For a ball park figure maybe you could just tell me on an average for your herd of 143 cows how much food they eat each day? There was one question you missed, from my reading I hve seen that you have to give cows a dry period, I wondered how long you let your cows go dry? Thank you again for your great knowledge, and I must comment on how much I admire you for being able to make a farm work without subsidies in any country but especially in a country so different from your home country as Thailand is. Issangeorge.

[Maizefarmer]

ISAANGEORGE

It is a combination of fatcors such as age of cow, weight of cow, how many lactation cycles she has been through ...... and a few other minor points.

I would say though that the longest is 9.5 weeks and the shortest is 5.5 weeks - with an average of 7 weeks - of course all prepartum.

The guideline is the cows weight 10 weeks prepartum and then again at 7 weeks - and depending what I am expecting wieght wise for that cow I'll then take the decision to dry her off.

This is agin a very important consideration when it comes to managing dairy cows. There are big changes taking place in a cows body in the last 2-3 months before the cow gives birth and its the careful managment of those chgnes that will impact significantly on the milk yield that cow will give you over the next cycle - and interestingly enough, how much milk she will continue to produce in subsequent lactation cycles as well. Get it "wrong" once and you stand a chance of reducing that cows milk yield for the rest of it's working life.

The "management" is all down to feed rations and what those rations consist of (protein, nutrients ect ect..)

Going back to your comments regards "old ways die hard".

The average Thai dariy farmer is poor person primarily because of a cycle of 2 circumstances:

- lack of education (animal husbandry skills)

- lack of money (small margins and tight farmgate prcies/profits)

The 2 become a cycle which it is difficult for them to escape from, but overwhelmingly the problem poor feed management, which is down to not having access to the best feed for the animals - especialy in the dry season when everything dries up and lacks the nutrient and protein content required to support milk production.

It is as you say an "old way/habit" and if you are not going to get caught in that cycle you are going to have to put your foot down and break away from those old ways - else you are going to be caught in the "subsitance cycle".

A ball part figure for how much each cow eats each day?

Issaangeorge, there is no ballpart figure at all. It's down to the age of the cow, the point in lactation cycle (if indeed we are talking about dairy cattle and not beef cattle), its down to the dry matter content, the size of the animal ect ect ect......

The best way to catogorise feed consumed per cow is to look at it in terms of the weight of the animal, and in very rough terms I would say that for every 100kg's of weight that that animal is it willbe eating about 30 - 35kg of fresh forage of which about 4.5 - 5.5kg is Dry Matter.

Subsidies are not a big issue in Thailand as we do not have the economic pressures that European farmers have. We can survive in Thailand without subsidies. European farmers cannot survive, they would go out of business overnight. The whole scale of economies right the way from the cost of land, thruogh to the cost of feed and the value of the cows follows a very different set of "controls".

In my opinion the worst thing this country could do is to start subsidising dairy or beef farmers. Rather it should ensure we get a decent farmgate price for our produce so that the whole industry if visable as a standa lone industry, from the farmgate through to retail marketing and consumption.

Tim

[RamdomChances]

Ok I'll wade in here as well as if you do actually start dairy you will probaly start something closer to mine than MF's. MF runs for what I can see a very professional farm run along the lines of a European system (batch clafing, all year avalibility of quality forage,fully automatic milking, computerised feeding and milk wieghing ?) there are very few dairy farm concerns that run that way here due to lack of knowlage and initial start up costs

Milk production- A cow will be at peak production generaly about a month after calfing, then you are on the downward slope until it drops so much that the cow becomes economicaly unviable to carry on milking i.e you milk output is less in value than your food input. Idealy we try and calf a cow every year. You will not get anywhere near the figures MF quoted as an average production. The national average is around 10 kg/day, I do around 12-14 (as long as I have quality forage)

Insemination/calfing - I belive MF batches his cattle in regaurdes to insemination and therefore calfing, in most cases this is not possible due to the relitively low conseption rates. (MF if I'm wrong in any of my assumptions please correct me). We inseminate basicaly about 2-3 months after they give birth, so idealy we will always have a percentage of cow's dryed off, at their milking peak and at at their lowest production (just before drying off). The advantage of doing it in a batch is that you can time the birth to when you have the best conditions (climate and food) to achive optimal milk production. It is something I would like to do but due to a number of factors we don't (poor conseption rates, poor heat detection, lack of avalible vet) so we just do it when we can, one advantage of this method is that you even out the peaks and troughs of milk production.

Dry Period - As a very general rule of thumb 2 months. If the cow is particualry thin give it longer. Sometimes if you have problems sucsesfully inseminating a cow it could be say 6 month into it's cycle. In this case we would milk it until is just not viable anymore and then dry it off or sell it.

Food/forage - This is by far the biggest issue in dairy farming, you get out what you put in. Most people use bagged food concentrate fed at 1 kg of food for 2 kg of milk production ( eg a cow giving you 20 kg of milk a day would recive 10 kg of food) this is on top of any forage they eat. Obviously if you have very good quality forage you can drop this ratio, you also have to look at the "body condition" of the cow, but its just a rule of thumb. Some people mix thier own concentrate which can work out at about half the price, you just have to weigh up the avaliblity of produce, storage, somewhere to mix it and the added labout involved

Forage - The single biggest factor IMO affecting you production and the ammount of cattle you are able to keep economicaly, it also has impacts on conseption rates. The vast majority of small scale dairy farms are not self sufficiant in their forage requirments. Many will have to rely on rice straw for a large ammount of the year (some all the time). Rice straw (Fang) is basicaly the bottom of the barrel when it comes to forage, you'r milk production will drop significanlty over any fresh produce plus you will have the added expence of having to buy the straw.

For exapmle, you have an average cow giving 12 kg a day @ 6 kg of concentrate food (say 6 bhat/kg) that works out at 36 bhat a day to feed it sell the milk for say 11.50 bhat/kg = 138 bhat so you make around 100 bhat a day

You have to buy in Straw (in my experiance estimate around a bail and a half a day) depending on wether you are buying in bulk or not this will more or less double you feed costs, so you are up to say 70 bhat a day for feed. On top of this your milk production is likely to drop by about 30-40% so you now only have 8 kg or 92 bhat/day, take off the feed cost and your left with 12 baht/cow/day !!!

add in staff, fuel, medicen, maintanance ect and you can see why many dairy farms have gone out of buissines in the last year or so.

There are other forages you can buy but at an increaced cost, you just need to wiegh up the inputs and outputs, we can buy in fresh "pangular" grass which is very good but at 2 bhat/kg it's double the cost of straw plus being fresh has a lower dry matter content so the cow's will eat generaly twice as much of it.

and in very rough terms I would say that for every 100kg's of weight that that animal is it willbe eating about 30 - 35kg of fresh forage of which about 4.5 - 5.5kg is Dry Matter

Do you feed forage add-lib ? that figure seems on the high side to me. It would mean a 500 kg cow eating 150 kg of forage a day, back when we used to have a cheap ready supply of pangular feed add-lib, we probaly averaged about 40-50 kg/day.

[Maizefarmer]

ISSAANGEORGE

Take careful note of RDC's comments regards cost versus profit and return - do you calcs carefully, the most significant of which will be feed costs. You defieantly do want to grow as much of your feed as possible. Having to purchase forage (fresh or ensiled) from others will impact on your margin.

To reply to your questions RDC:

Yes I do "batch" as much as possible.

Tim

[Issangeorge]

Thank you Maizefarmer and Random Chances, I am now starting to get a feeling for the costs of raising dairy cows. One answer that I still have not got or maybe I am stupid and just don't know if I have it. All these average yields that are been thrown around, I am tking these as anual daily average yields including dry period. For instance cow a with an average yield might produce anywhere from 0 in its dry period to say 20 kgs after birthing and any figures inbetween but over the 365 day year the average would be 13 kgs./day or 4,745 for the year. Am I assuming right? Thanks again. Issangeorge.

[Maizefarmer]

Yes - that is correct - but please please do not forget that the figures I have quoted you are my milk production figures i.e. that is what I achieve, and youre figures when it comes to farming are not going to be the same - they could be more or less.

No its not over 365 days - it is over the lactation cycle to be more correct - which means from the time you start milking the cow after it has gvien birth to the time that you stop milking and let it go dry.

Typically though it will not start off at 1 or 2 kgs but more likely at 8 or 9 kgs

Tim

[RamdomChances]

Yea, mine are based on milking cattle, so that would be the average of the cow's I'm actually milking.

In simple terms, I you get a 1 year cycle, 2 months of it will be dry, therefore to be milking (on average) 10 cows a day you would need to own 12 cows, don't forget you have to support the dry cows as well and any calf's if you decide to raise them.

I'd be looking for at least 20 kg a day off a cow just after giving birth, any less than that and it's a candidate for sale (eventualy). I dry off 2 month's before birth (generaly) or when the production drops to 5 kg a day. At that point I would then decide if the cow was worth keeping or not. I'll add my stock if far from premium stock ....a good cow is one you can make money off.

I generaly dont bother buying anything unless its verifably pregnant....unless it's really cheap

[Issangeorge]

Maizefarmer & Random Chances thanks again. Okay I think I am understanding the milk yields a little better. If Cow "A" averages 13 kms per day that is for the lactation period and if it is kept dry for 63 days then the milk from it over a year would be 300*13=3,900 kgs for the year. Oh I realize that all lactation cycles and dry periods may not work out to be 365 days. Random Chances where do you get your stock? I think your opperation is closer to what I am planning. I would like to start with between 10-20 cows to start with to get an idea of what I am doing. Oh I all most forgot, how many milking machines would you use per cow and what are there costs and where do you get them. Talking to you guys is like taking a course on dairy farming over the internet, only with guys actually doing it. I must thank you all again, I really apreciate all the time you spend in answering my questions. Issangeorge.

[RamdomChances]

IG if you are seriously planing this THINK VERY CARFULY ABOUT WHAT YOU WILL FEED THEM...sorry for shouting but I can not stress how inportant that is.

I but and sell often so my stock is very "fluid" I don't raise many calf's at the now as cows are so cheap at the moment. Over the years I've built up quite a few contacts around the area and down aroung Korat/Lopburi area, so basicaly when I'm looking for stock we just make some phone call's telling people what we want and wait, out of area people will expect a "finders fee" about 500 bhat a head, unless they happen to be traders, but you'd pay a bit more anyway off a trader as he want his cut. Most are probaly bought localy.

I have a pretty good working relationship with a guy here that trades in predominantly beef, but often buys up whole dairy farms (often sold if the people are just getting out). If he knows I'm looking for stock he'll give me a call and I get the pick, usually at about a coule of 1000 bhat more than the value as beef. I sometimes hold dairy stock for him until he can get rid of it as well (I feed them but get the milk)

If you go and buy cattle be very careful, everyone will try and overcharge you, this is nothing to do with you being a "falang" but more to do with you not knowing the true value of the cows, everyone tries to buy/sell for the best price they can, it's part of the game....every cow I own would be for sale, at the right price

Milking Machines - MF uses a full auto system, they are expensive for all but the biggest farms, we use semi-auto, you can see them in the pic below. You buy a pump that can cope with 1,2,4,6,8 milking sets, generaly 1 milking set to 10-15 cows, the more sets you have the quicker you will milk. I used to do about 80 in around hour and a half with 2 people and 4 sets. SAC has the best name here for reliability, 1 set will cost something like 30,000 bhat (I have'nt bought one for a while, I think they were more like 26,000 last time I did). The pumps, going from my poor memory say 20,000 for a 4 set pump, get a pump a size bigger than you think you'll need the differance in cost is'nt that much and you have room for expansion if you need it.

Underneath is something I copied from another thread, it might be of intrest to you and highlights some of the problems involved. If you want to come on over at all to have a look your welcome, but I've stocked right down at the moment.

A bit of history

When I fisrt moved up here with the idea of starting the farm I was pretty unsure about the whole sheme, all but 7 rai of land was rented out and would not be avalible for another 2 years, so we built a smallish milking palour (10 stalls) holding area and some feed stations on what we had and just chucked some jumbo into the rest. I started out with about 10 cows to see if it was actually profitable, we were just hand cutting the jumbo. As the farm grew there was no way the couple of rai we has would support the cows, but we had aquired a lorry as well running mainly chicken food and I was looking for extra work for it. The province next to us there is a big co-op growing pangular, so we started doing runs every 2 day (its bailed but does'nt keep long) and selling /delivering it to the local farms as well, this proved quite succsessful, so much in fact that I was virtually geting my own pangular for free.

With the avalibliity of virtually unlimited cheap forage,we expanded more, the original farm was no longer big enough, but by this time the rest of the land was back in our hands. So we decided to build a new set up, the first year we had the land back I was'nt really interested in doing much with it as we were busy building the new farm and my forage was taken care of, so I just let the family use it.

The following year I was keen to try cash crops, using the cash to pay for forage, we had grown to about 100+ milkers by then. It was around this time the problems started, the co-op selling the grass was getting more orders than it could supply so basicaly started rationing the stuff, we were ok but could not increase our order, then all of a sudden they decided to basicaly double the price of the stuff from 1 bhat/kg to 2bhat/kg. I could'nt sell any at that price and paying the transport costs plus extra for the grass just for me was'nt viable, so with the already put over to cash crops we had to look for an alternative. Enter "Fang Mak". Initialy we just went over to fang while I had the fang mak silos built, milk production droped by about 40% but my costs were sugnificantly reduced as well, not enough to make up the differance but it helped. When the "mak"came online my production shot straight back up and remained there, nearly to the levels when we were feeding fresh grass (pangolar) but consiberably cheaper, problem sloved we thought, so continued with trying various cash crops looking for things we could sell and use the reminder for the cattle, had some sucsess with peanuts using the palnt as a suplement to the fang mak and selling the nuts. About 6 months after feeding the Mak the milk production started to drop off and continued doing so back down to the levels of straight fang, on top of this fang had nearly doubled in price due to fuel price increaces and quite frankly for the first time since opening we were making a loss. So we downsized and decided to switch to trying to grow enough forage for the cows.

Enter this year, we had some very early rain here about feb/march so decided to chuck some jumbo in and see what happened, it started slow but using some sprinklers we managed to get enough that we we cutting by april, we are still cutting the same stuff, but gradualy, instead of cutting and re-growing, we are cutting and re-ploughing and going over to russi, well in parts. Some we are going to continue with jumbo as the lower parts of the land get a bit wet for ruzzi. Milk production is back up and profitablity/head is better than it ever has (although with less cows).

So basicaly this year is the first year we have really looked at forage managment on a large scale (we tried a few rai of differant stuff previously) and the nessesity of getting something up and growing lead to the whole lot being put over to Jumbo. One of the problems at the moment is when it gets too wet we cant get on the land to cut so have had to graze the cows on some parts of it. Jumbo does'nt take well to grazing with little re-growth, so we are slowly changing to russi. I'm hoping to have enough until about dec/jan but there wont be enough for silage. I can keep about 10 rai gowing with sprinklers and am hoping that and with additional fan/fang mak will see me through the dry season, but overall at the moment I'd say our land utilisation was only at about 50%, some areas of the jumbo did'nt take too well as we planted so early, plus it all came at more or less the same time so some of what we are feeding is past it's best. I'm planning on switching more to ruzzi and strip grazing, with some Jumbo as a back up for cut'n'carry, if the ruzzi is sucsessful I'll probably switch over completly, or mabye grow jumbo for silage, the fang mak silos can easily be converted for silage making.

Any suggestions are more than welcome

RC

[Maizefarmer]

ISSANGEORGE

I have the following parts for you in working order if you wish - you can come and collect or I can send them to you by inter-provincil truck.

1 x vacum pump (good for 3 - 4 milking sets) Baht 9K (single phase 220Vac)

3 x milking sets (complete with claws and regulators - all new rubber cups) Baht 5k each.

Regulators not used since overhaul in November 2005. Pails are stainless steel.

2 x Aluminium milk containers (well used and dented but not leaking and fine) Baht 500 each.

Its old stuff but clean and I will give you a 12 month garuntee on all of it.

I would suggest you give consideration to buying 2nd hand to start with. SAC is fine - unless you want to buy Alfa Laval (which is the best but is horribly expensive and offers no advantage for a manual/semi-auto system).

You will have to install the vacum pump and run a vacum line - but other than that - everything you need to get milk out of a cow is here.

Tim

[RamdomChances]

^ whats the make of the milking sets ? I might be interested If IG is'nt

I could pick them up

[Maizefarmer]

The regulaors (actualy pulsers) are old HP 101's (about ten years old - working just fine)

(see: http://www.delaval.com/Products/MilkingEqu...01/default.htm)

The clusters/claws are old MC31's (about 10 years old - working just fine)

(see: http://www.delaval.com/Products/MilkingEqu...31/default.htm)

The buckets are local made units (from the dairy parts shop in Muek Lek)

All tubing and rubbers are local stuff .

The vacum unit is a home made using an Inidan made Garuda pump with recirculating water for the ring. The actual vacum pump its self is cast iron weighs about 150lbs and will never break - I mean never break. It really was a total overkill in terms of engineering design, but I found it in a scrap yard in 1988 and used it non-stop with not one minute of downtime and zero maintanence untill 1999 when I went over to a milk line and bulk cool tank.

It must have something like 15 000 hours usage - and the internals are as good as the day it came out the factory. On second thoughts I may not sell the vacum pump - its a treasured piece of family history now that saw me throough the early years unrelentingly.

yes - you'll have to come and pick it all up.

Tim

[RamdomChances]

delavel is fine, I would'nt be intested in the pump anyway, I've got spares

yes - you'll have to come and pick it all up.

When would a good time for that be

[Maizefarmer]

ISSANGEORGE

You have read all about dairy farming on this website - well, er .... not quite.

You must now go and do some reading up on a subject called MASTITIS. Its a very common cow condition which you will have occur in your cows (we all do - even me) and if it is not managed properly it will bring your dairy farming to a standstill over night. learn as much as you can about mastitis and controlling/treating cows which have it.

RDC - anytime this coming month would be fine. The years work is over and we are all off to the Blighty for 2 weeks in December (from the 18th onwards) and then to the good 'ol USA or A for 2 weeks in January. Back on the 15th Jan.

I have our Dutch friends coming up sometime in about 3 weeks to stay for a few days - as soon as I have the exact date our let you know but I can tell you now it will be around the 2nd and 3rd weekend of Nov.

Tim

[RamdomChances]

^ OK Tim we'll sort something out by PM, Nov in Loei sound's a bit chilly, will I have to break my flece's out

[Issangeorge]

Random Chances and Maizefarmer, thanks again. Maizefarmer I am not near the stage where I would need milking machines, I would have no one to sell the milk to. I wish I was because your offer seems very reasonable. I am waiting on the Tamboon Administration down the road from me to decide if they want to get a co-op going. If they do I want to be knowledgable enough about the subject to decide if I want to get involved and if it would be cost effective. I have read a little about MASTITIS and will be doing more research on it in the future. Random Chances, I am thinking very much about food. I have 16 raii now and can probably get another 11 rai, and we have about 20 rai of irrigated rice padies that could probably be planted with maize for a dry season crop. If I irrigated the other 27 rai, from reading Maizefarmer's posts and a couple other sites I have run accross I figure I could raise anywhere from 20 to about 40 cows. I figure 40 might be on the high side so say 30. That of course is if the land is managed properly. I have done some very rough numbers from all the information I have gathered so far and figure that if I don't grow my own food at best I would have a break even operation, but if I can supply my own food and have a 40 cow opperation I can afford to pay my family member workers a decent Issan wage and still have some left over for my wife and I to enjoy a nice vacation once a year. Remember I am on a pension so do not need the money to live on. My main purpose in starting an opperation would be to supply a decent Issan living for my wife's family and hopefully grow a business for my nieces who I consider as my own children since my wife and I don't have any of our own. Issangeorge.

[Maizefarmer]

ISSAMGEORGE - fair and honourable comment(s).

Remember - 1rai of well managed forage land has the potential to support 2 cows year round.

Yes - if you are having to buy feed all the time you will have effectively turned a potential profit making business into one that is now self sustaining.

Keep us posted

Tim

[Maizefarmer]

MASTITIS – biggest cause in Thailand.

Mastitis is caused by 2 very different types of bugs: the one type is Enviromental, they are E Coli and klebsiella. Theyare found in feed and in beding in side barns.

This type accounts for very little Mastitis in Thailand – hardly any.

It’s the 2nd type that is the nuisance – and a big nuisance it is, with figures ranging from 60 – 90% of heards affected to the point that milk letdown is impacted on sufficiently to change earnings considerably – making the difference between profit and loss.

There are 3 very similar bugs in this 2nd group. Strep Uberis, Strep Aureuas and trep Agalactia.

They account for almost all incidents of Mastitis in Thailand. Unlike the 1st group which is not contagious and does not spread from cow to cow, these little blighters do spread through a herd quickly.

And here’s the significant part about them – it’s where they are found: on milking machinery and no where else.

And here is the 2nd significant characteristic about them: they only affect cows whose teats get damaged by they milking machinery.

In other words – they are easily elimanted and deal’t with, and they occurance in cow heards is not so much a reflection of bad enviormental or husbandry skills, but more so a reflection of more milking practise and machinery maintenance.

Heres how it goes:

4 Stages to a mechanical milking cycle.

These stages occur while the milking cups are attached to the udder and are pulsing. That pulsing is determined by a mechanical or electronic switch which turns the vacuum pulse on and off.

1. Application of Vacum (b amount of time or a percentage of total time)

2. Vacum (c amount of time or a percentage of total time)

3. Vacum switch off ( d amount of time or a percentage of total time).

4. No vacuum (a mount of time or a percentage of total time)

….. and then the cycle repeats.

The cycle lasts for: a + b + c + d = Total Time

While this is taking place not only is milk been sucked from the udder, but blood is been sucked into the teat. The amount of time the vacuum is on versus the amount of time it is off in each cycle affects blood flow to the teat.

If the amount of time the vacuum is on over the amount of time it is off the blood flow is reduced to the point that over the whole milking period each day the udder is subjected to a build up of stagnated and deoxygenated blood (i.e. blood keeps been sucked into the teat for more time than it is allowed to escape back into the venous system).

This encourages tissue congestion on the teat exposing the teat skin to micro lesions, and it’s through these lesions that the 3 types of Strep enter the cow causing Mastitis.

All pulsators have a ratio of on versus off that is normally set and fixed by the manufacturers. The common settings are 35/65, 40/60 and 45/55 – and some pulsators are variable within the above range.

Any of the above is fine, the problem occurs when the pulsator filters get blocked throwing the fixed or programmed ratio out the window and causing excessive vacuum time to be applied to the teats.

…………. and its all very simple to deal with: for no more than the effort of maintaining and cleaning your equipment properly, you can avoid almost all incidents of Mastitis caused by Strep.

Stage 4 should not be les than 200 milliseconds or 35% of the total cycle time.

Make sure the pulsator fliters are 1000% clean!

A Mastitis cell count of 160 – 180 is fine.

Most herds in Thailand are carrying cows which carry over 10 000 cell counts per 1ml and 10 -15% of cows are carrying cell counts that are over 100 000 per 1ml.

Fine, you may get your milk through the screening to the co-op and market, but you cow is not producing anywhere near what it is capable of.

For the record my worst count ever was 400 000 and best ever was 20 and my current average is 170.

[Issangeorge]

Thanks Maizefarmer I much appreciate your time in tutouring a newcomer in Dairy Farming, I just hope that some day I will be able to use all the knowledge you and Random Chances are giving me. Issangeorge.

[Issangeorge]

Just a question for Maizefarmer or Random Chances, I have been asking around and it doesn't look like there will be a Dairy Co-op near my area anytime soon. There are however a few people I know who would like fresh milk. I have some regular Thai Cows, would it be possible to milk these and sell maybe 20 -30 litres of milk a day to locals? Would the milk be okay and would there be any legal problems? Thanks. Issangeorge

[Maizefarmer]

Why not – great idea I think.

Personally it’s the only milk I drink. Tastes much better, contains much more goodness than homogenised & pastuarised milk.

The legal side of it: strictly speaking yes, there is a very specific law in Thailand regards the sale of raw milk, but like prostitution laws it is not enforced, simply because in some areas there are no facilities for homogenising and pasturising. As long as you make sure your customers understand that they are purchasing raw milk you’ll be fine.

Follow these rules:

- Cool to 4 degree C or less within 15 minutes of milking (this is critical – do not slip up on this QC – raw milk multiplies in bacteria count at a galloping pace above 4 C. This is your golden rule)

- Keep all equipment ultra clean (wash after each milking with clean water and an antibacterial cleaner. This golden rule number 2. Hang claws and pails up in shaded area where flies can’t get to it).

- Do a cell check every time you milk a cow. If in doubt about a cow, bin that milk – do not mix.

Strain milk through any suitable strainer from a dairy shop, bag in 1 litre quantities in transperant plastic bags. Double bag (i.e. one bag in side another).

With an indelible marker write on the bags.

Date XX/XX/XX

And the words: “Raw Cows Milk. Keep in fridge and Consume within 3 days of date on plastic bag”

This should be done and the bags should be put into an ice both within 15 minutes of the cow been milked.

- Do not mix milk from an earlier milking with milk from a later milking.

- Do not carry over milk for more than 2 days – down the drain it must go – or if you wish, try making butter or cheese with it. Butter is easy to make.

Is there a market for raw milk?

You bet there is.

It may take a couple weeks for news to get round, but it will and within a month or so you’ll be up and running. Good chance you’ll have a local caterer/baker knocking on the door at some point – all they are looking for is a good clean source of milk that is cheaper than the shops. That’s good, because the process raw milk undergoes in baking or any other cooked food process will pasturise it.

Aim For Baht 20 – 25 p/litre (at 25 you’ll be getting more or less double what I get selling it to the co-op and will be making a decent profit).

So why don’t I do it if it’s such a good idea?

I have too many vested commercial interests in this business which prevent me form doing so. Foremost would throw the book at me if they found out I was selling raw milk on the retail market – or even processed milk. I can’t have it both ways.

[Issangeorge]

Thanks very much Maizefarmer, I was actually thinking of both raw milk and pasturized milk, since all the reading I have done shows that pasturizing is a simple process and I think some customers would feel safer with pasturiced milk. It seems everytime I get an answer in this post another question crops up. How do you do a cell check? Thanks Issangeorge.

[Maizefarmer]

It looks like a large tea strainer which you can get from a dairy supply shop

Strip out a couple lines of milk from each teat and pass it through the strainer - if mastitis is present you'll see small spots/small lumps accumulate as they do not passp through the strainer.

It is in fact your first indication of a number of problems - all which show up by way of accumulation of spots or lumps on the strainer.

So it is not a cell count per say, but if spots or lumps are present then its time to call in the vet to undertake a cell count.

You are going to pasturise are you - easy in theory somewhat diffirent in practise youll find out, but I'm all behind people who stick their neck out in an attempt to find solutions to problems.

If you think you can maintain QC each day with pasturising that small quantity of milk, by all means go for it - just whatch you temp controls and timings - to much can be as bad as to little. And, as I always say - get your economics right - but by all means go for it and keep me informed. I'd be really keen to see how well you can consistantly pull off pasturing around 30litre each day.

[Issangeorge]

It looks like a large tea strainer which you can get from a dairy supply shop

Strip out a couple lines of milk from each teat and pass it through the strainer - if mastitis is present you'll see small spots/small lumps accumulate as they do not passp through the strainer.

It is in fact your first indication of a number of problems - all which show up by way of accumulation of spots or lumps on the strainer.

So it is not a cell count per say, but if spots or lumps are present then its time to call in the vet to undertake a cell count.

You are going to pasturise are you - easy in theory somewhat diffirent in practise youll find out, but I'm all behind people who stick their neck out in an attempt to find solutions to problems.

If you think you can maintain QC each day with pasturising that small quantity of milk, by all means go for it - just whatch you temp controls and timings - to much can be as bad as to little. And, as I always say - get your economics right - but by all means go for it and keep me informed. I'd be really keen to see how well you can consistantly pull off pasturing around 30litre each day.

Maizefarmer, I just thought pastrized milk would apeal to more people than raw. I am still aways away from doing it, still in early stages, but I was in Macro today and the only milk I could find was pasturized sweetend milk two 450ml bottles for 35 baht, so I figure people would be willing to pay at least 30 baht for real milk, I just have to find the people. Since I already have the cows my investment will not be large and if it just makes enough to give my wife's family a living I'll be happy. Issangeorge.