drying off a cow
Hi Doughertys, Hope you all have been well!
Quick question for you about our cow. She calved last May (right before we got her) and we got her pregnant a bit late (2 AI attempts), so she’s due again in September. Right now I’ve been milking twice a day and am getting about a full gallon in the morning and a gallon and a half or so in the afternoon. We have a trip coming up the second weekend of March and it seems like it might be a good time to dry her up. I was reading yesterday that if your cow is giving 30 lbs of milk a day or less, they should be able to just go cold turkey with no issues. I know that wouldn’t be a lot for a full dairy cow, but for mine, 15 lbs is the most we’ve ever gotten in a day. I’m going go to one milking a day for the next week or so, then try to stop completely after that. What are your thoughts on this timing? I asked this in a Facebook cow group I’m in, and lots of people were supportive of that plan, but then one girl said not to dry her up…that you only want to have about 60 days between you dry her and she calves. She said having her dry from now till September would set her up for a fatty liver.
Interested to hear what you guys think, thanks so much!
Hi, Mark,
Well, the fatty liver is a new one for us. Two and a half gallons is a lot for a little cow, and a little for a big cow. Probably moderate for your Holstein/Angus cross; she's not making so much she'll bust when you stop milking her. Regardless, though - if you need to dry her off quickly, dropping to OAD for a week and then stopping completely wouldn't be our solution - the OAD milking will be telling her to go on lactating, and it won't prevent some impaction/mastitis during the drying-off stage. If you wanted her dry two months from now, that would be different; but if you want to stop milking soon, your best bet is just to do it.
Drying off will always include a period of impaction, and probably some mastitis. Even when a calf self-weans you're going to see some of that - when the udder makes milk and it isn't taken, there will be impaction. It's not really a problem most of the time, so long as she's then allowed to dry off completely. Mastitis caused by impaction is not a big deal. If, on the other hand, she calves while she still has mastitis, she can get a bad case when her milk comes in, and if it's not resolved it can reduce her overall production capacity.
As far as we are concerned, the two months is a minimum, not a maximum; that is, if you're going to dry her off, do it so she has two months to dry off completely, that is, so she's beyond any latent mastitis before she calves. But we don't see any problem with drying her off MORE than two months before calving; in nature, cows wean their calves whenever, and I've never observed a schedule that avoids a more-than-two-month dry period.
Actually, if you want to dry a cow off quickly, you want to remove any high-protein foods from her diet and just quit milking. There are other things some folks do, like restricting her water for 12 - 24 hours, putting her on lower-protein hay for the same period, and even shutting her in the barn with the windows covered meanwhile. Some folks think this is traumatic for them, but I don't know - normal life for anything is going to include the occasional fast, for whatever reason. Drying-off has discomforts; if you could reduce them by a day of low-quality forage, dim light, and limited water, I think maybe that would be an improvement on a more acute impaction before drying off is successful. But then, I've been a nursing mom eight times, and know how uncomfortable impaction can be.
I hope this helps!
Best,
Beth