# sudden decrease in milk production



## scholtefamily (Feb 25, 2010)

Greetings, I've been lurking on this board since getting our cows a few months ago and am glad to have found you all. We have a jersey that is due in Sept with her 2nd and a holstein that calved in Feb. and is currently not bred. We were getting 7 to 7.5 gallons of milk a day. Over the past week we have dropped to getting about 5 gallons a day. Any ideas of why this may have happened? Thanks, Stacey


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Your Jersey is due to drop in production. At this stage of lactation this is normal.

Did you experience a sudden increase in blood sucking insects? Mosquitos, heel flys, etc can really drain them. How about nutrition? Pasture good? 

Have they been wormed?


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## Ronney (Nov 26, 2004)

Hi Stacey and welcome to the site

Can you give a bit more information such as are you grain feeding or pasture feeding, sharemilking with their calves, what is each cow giving.

Depending on what your circumstances are there could be several reasons for the drop in production. I'm assuming the Jersey calved around about September 2009? in which case she will be dropping off in production naturally and if she were mine, I would now be looking at putting her on to OAD milking with a view of having her dried off by the end of July at the latest.

The Holstein should be reaching the peak of production and if she isn't/hasn't you need to be looking at other things. If she is in good health, feed will be the next biggest contributor. I don't grain feed so I will leave that to somebody else with more knowledge in that department to give you advice, but if pasture feeding, are you moving your cows around (rotational grazing) or are they stuck in the same paddock day after day. Pasture fed dairy cows need good feed on a daily basis, if they don't get it their production falls off rapidly.

PS Tinknal posted while I was thinking and typing and brought up other options that I hadn't taken into consideration but are important - worming and pesky things that don't tend to affect our cattle too badly here.

Cheers,
Ronnie


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## scholtefamily (Feb 25, 2010)

Tinknal and Ronney, Thanks for your replies. 

I will definately be more diligent with fly control. I have been spraying them with a homemade natural fly spray when I remember(which is fairly regularly).

Our cows are pasture fed and they have access to hay all day long. We only have about 3 acres of pasture right now that is divided into 14 paddocks. We move them every 24 hours. I know our pasture is not the best quality at this point, which is why we have hay out for them. We have about 5 more acres that we converted from corn and soybeans to grass and hope to move them to that by next spring. 

The cows have no calves on them. The Holstein was giving 4-5 gallons a day when we got her and the jersey about 2-2.5. They have never been wormed. The farmer we got them from doesn't worm any of his cows as far as I know. 

The Jersey calved in April of 09. Thank you for the advice on OAD milking for now. We had planned on drying her up in July.

Thanks, Stacey


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

scholtefamily said:


> Tinknal and Ronney, Thanks for your replies.
> 
> I will definately be more diligent with fly control. I have been spraying them with a homemade natural fly spray when I remember(which is fairly regularly).
> 
> ...


Your Jersey has been milking for 13 -14 months now! Time to give her a rest and let her recover. I would dry her up now.


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