procross-cows-plan-5.html
VikingNews UK 01 2018
6 / 28
6 vikingnews | may 2018 6 the
oulton
house
farm
philosophy is plain and simple: lots of milk from healthy
cows
, as the manager of the
farm
, sally lea sums up. 10 years? crossbreeding experience has shown them the path to achieving outstanding results. owned by arthur palmer, the
farm
has 430
cows
and outperforms the average herd in the united kingdom in terms of both health and production. sally lea, who is also a veterinary surgeon, says there are rarely any cases of mastitis in the herd. a huge advan- tage if you consider that there are 32 cases of mastitis per 100
cows
in milk per year in the uk - according to the nmr (national milk records) survey of 2017. in the meantime, lameness at
farm
level in the uk is 22% in an average performing herd, but can be 42% in the worst performing herds. these numbers are considerably lower at
oulton
house
farm
where they have less than 5% cas- es of lameness. the high health quality of the herd is not the only rea- son why
oulton
house
farm
stands out from the crowd; their production figures are something else they are very proud of. lea explains that last year, they had an average production of 9,412 kg milk, compared to the average in england + wales of 8,430 kg milk. this win/win for
oulton
house
farm
is also reflected in the bottom line; less money spent on health-related treat- ment and more income from high yield production. the ex- ceptional performance at
oulton
house
farm
has not been achieved by accident ? it is thanks to a significant change in the breeding strategy that palmer implemented 10 years ago. ?arthur had a pure holstein herd, and he decided to cross 40
cows
with vikingred. he noticed in the first lacta- tion that these crosses enhanced milk production and that they hardly had sore feet or mastitis. they actually pro- duced more milk than the pure holsteins we had, and were back in calf without problems,? lea says. by verónica löfgren, communicator at vikinggenetics the
farm
has no problems with reproduction with a conception rate of 47% on a rolling 12-month basis. re- placement is 20% and heifer calving starts in july, while
cows
do this in august palmer, with the help of manager lea and two other employees has been implementing the whole procross system since 2015 choosing the best bulls from viking- red, vikingholstein, and montbeliarde. ?when we are se- lecting bulls, we choose mainly bulls with high produc- tion indices because we know we already have the health traits, that?s why we are doing crossbreeding with pro- cross,? she says. future plans for the herd after starting to use procross, mastitis and lameness problems were significantly reduced. the plan now is to increase the number of
cows
from 430 to 450, and palmer is planning to build a new barn. sally lea, manager of
oulton
house
farm
, newport, shropshire. the
farm
has 430 procross
cows
. procross
cows
on grass at the
oulton
farm
. vikingnews | may 2018 superior health and production powered by procross
cows
at
oulton
house
farm
herd in uk
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