Brian Roche – a third generation farmer in Ireland – reports on his experience using a bolus for cattle to supplement his dairy herd.
“To be honest this for me has been one of the most beneficial products I have taken on at any time in my 25 years years of farming here”.
Brian’s grandfather bought the farm in 1947, and started milking British Friesian cows right away. Brian’s father then brought some Holstein blood via AI into the herd in the 1980’s, seeing the profile of the herd improve with more milk from the same number of cows. During Brian’s time managing the farm, he has been progressing these milk yields further, as well as improving calving performance.
“We’re a liquid milk herd on about 8,500 litres and hoping to go north to that. We’re down at just 380 days calving interval. I would have to say that ANIMAX products have been a key component of achieving those figures”, Brian comments.
“I had heard of the Tracesure bolus for cattle before. I knew lads who would use it, and for the most part only ever heard good things. But it was really only when we got to actually meet with you and talk through it…one of the things that really appealed to us was the certainty that in every application every cow got what they needed”, explains Brian.
“From a time saving perspective on our farm, we thought that was a good idea. And also from the animals perspective – every cow was getting her trace element requirements. Since we started using Tracesure Cattle XL, we have cut two applications down to one with the same amount of trace elements in there”.
“In the last two years I’ve never had to physically jack as few calves as I have, which says something about the condition and fitness of the cow when she comes to calving”.
“We administer the bolus at drying off so you get the benefit throughout the prepartum period. The cow is then fit the calving. And because of the duration that the bolus lasts in the cow, you get it all the way up into the breeding”, adds Brian. “With youngstock, weight targets are very important, trying to achieve that point-8 per day. That can be challenging depending on weather conditions, but we have found that since using the Tracesure cattle with copper bolus, we’ve given our animals a really good chance of meeting those targets and meet them more years then not”, concludes Brian.
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