These five items should definitely be taken off the menu for dairy cows
It's essential to make sure the potatoes are of a size that will not get stuck in a cow's throat.
I am not a ruminant nutritionist.
Sure, some vets attain higher qualifications in ruminant nutrition.
However, I am personally unqualified to be making recommendations about diet compositions, debating the finer points of NDF (neutral detergent fibre), or preaching the benefits of rumen-protected methionine.
In fact, grimly fiddling with percentages in a nutrition program is a sure-fire way to send me to sleep.
I would rather spend an hour extracting a rotting calf than formulate a lactating cow diet - a natural preference when you have a high tolerance for stench and a low tolerance for metabolic pathways.
However, I've seen things go into cow mouths that even I knew were not meant to be there.
Maybe people get caught out by 'it seemed like a good idea at the time', or perhaps it's a lack of awareness?
Whatever the case, the following items should definitely be taken off the menu.
1. Restricted animal material
In 1986, a new disease was reported in cattle in the United Kingdom.
Cows would walk strangely and fall over a lot, and then show signs of aggression, anxiety, and frenzy.
This led to the name 'mad cow disease' (which is a lot easier to remember than 'transmissible spongiform encephalopathy').
It was then found that humans eating affected material would also develop neurological signs.
The resulting panic resulted in the slaughter of 4.4 million cattle in the UK and a decade-long ban on British beef that decimated the industry.
Flash forward to today.
Since 1996 it has been illegal in Australia to feed any material taken from a vertebrate animal other than tallow, gelatin or milk products to ruminants.
Recycled cooking oil can be fed... but only from Australian Renderers Association accredited sources.
While I haven't seen anyone gleefully encouraging cow-on-cow cannibalism, I have spoken to farmers giving eggs to scouring calves.
It's true that eggs are nutritious, but they are also illegal to feed to ruminants.
This helps to protect Australian livestock and agricultural exports, alongside participation in disease surveillance programs (i.e., the only reason I can list 'axe-assisted brain extraction' as a skill on my CV).
2. Car batteries
Every time I've seen a case of lead poisoning and asked if the animals have had access to car batteries, a client has looked at me like I'm the one who's mad.
Look, we all know that sometimes the farm (or lease block) isn't as tidy as we'd like it to be.
Heifers are curious animals, and they love the sweet taste of lead.
I once tested a group of 50 healthy-looking survivors exposed to a single battery and was astounded to find that every one of them had blood levels that were off the charts.
So, if you were looking for a bit of a push to do some belated spring cleaning... well, consider this it.
3. Cypress tree trimmings
But if you decide to prune all your cypress trees while you're at it, then don't let your cows get at the trimmings.
Pine and cypress trimmings cause abortions in cattle - and it only takes a few late pregnant recipient cows losing their high genetic merit sexed semen embryos to severely ruin someone's week.
People sometimes tell me that animals just seem to 'know' what they need and won't consume silly things that are harmful to them.
Unfortunately, having peered into the contents of many a cow's stomach, I can assure you that this is not the case.
4. Whole potatoes
Excess produce sometimes finds its way onto dairy farms.
Growing up in a budget-conscious household gave me an almost pathological hatred of food waste, so it warms my thrifty heart to see perfectly good calories being recycled.
However, it's essential to make sure the potatoes are of a size that will not get stuck in a cow's throat.
Cows need to pass gas to avoid bloat.
There are also nutritional considerations which would best be addressed by speaking to, you know, an actual nutritionist.
I'm just the poor schmuck who does not enjoy trudging out with the stomach tube and paraffin oil on a late Saturday night.
5. Diesel
Speaking of which, it's true that bloat oil contains paraffin and paraffin is derived from petroleum.
Diesel fuel is also derived from petroleum, so I can see how one might confuse the two.
However, it is a severely bad idea to feed diesel to your cattle.
Do not put rocks into a trough and cover them with diesel to try and encourage your cows to lick the oil.
Yes, it may prevent them from developing bloat, but it will also cause extensive chemical burns to the lining of the rumen and your local vet will be confused and pretty horrified that you tried to do this.
So, there you have it. Have I missed anything? If so, send me an email.
*Ee Cheng Ooi is a cattle veterinarian undertaking a PhD in fertility and genetics at DairyBio. All comments and information in this article are intended to be of general nature only. Please consult the farm's vet for advice, protocols and/or treatments that are tailored to the herd's particular needs. Comments and feedback are welcome, email ecooi.vet@gmail.com.
Social responsibility push for dairies
Lactalis International, the largest dairy processing company in the world, hopes to have all of its milk suppliers around the globe signed up to its CSR project by 2025, he said.
DAIRY processor Lactalis wants farmers supplying it with milk, including Western Australian farmers supplying Harvey Fresh, to join its global Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project.
Three of its 14 Harvey Fresh suppliers are already part of a pilot CSR project to collect and analyse detailed data on their farming operations, Lactalis Australia's WA supplier relationships manager Carl Dinkelmann told last week's Western Dairy Spring Forum at Bunbury.
Lactalis hopes the other 11 in WA and the remainder of its Australian suppliers will voluntarily join the CSR project - once it is formally launched nationally in January - to have their farms independently audited at least once under the program within the next four years, Mr Dinkelmann said.
Lactalis International, the largest dairy processing company in the world, hopes to have all of its milk suppliers around the globe signed up to its CSR project by 2025, he said.
Currently, the CSR project collects data from dairy farms across 11 countries which produce 76 per cent of the global "Lactalis milk pool", Mr Dinkelmann said.
He explained the CSR project collected data on a range of dairy farm operational areas, with the ultimate aim of establishing best practices for its milk suppliers to enhance sustainability, minimise greenhouse gas emissions and preserve water resources, while improving animal welfare and food safety.
"(Lactalis) global have launched the project to reduce our environmental footprint, strengthen our positive social impacts and better answer to the increasing expectations of our clients and civil society," Mr Dinkelmann said.
"The idea is to try and get an indication of (greenhouse gas emission) outputs across the (dairy products) supply chain.
"It's not so much a carbon program, but an environmental program that is also looking at animal welfare, which is a huge part of our industry."
Mr Dinkelmann said there are two components to the project for Harvey Fresh and other Lactalis Australia dairy farmer suppliers who sign up.
One is an onfarm audit requiring farmers to complete an animal welfare questionnaire and allow an independent inspection and assessment of their operation and herds.
The second requires the farmer to input a broad range of farming operational data onto a dairy module of the Cool Farms Tool digital platform which has a greenhouse gas emissions calculator as part of it.
The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development also recommends the same digital platform be used by other farmers to self-assess their operations' likely greenhouse gas emissions.
"The onfarm assessments will look at things like is there enough water available (for cows to drink), how many troughs do you have, animal comfort including things like back scratchers - there are some farms that have them in holding yards coming into the dairy," Mr Dinkelmann said.
"They will also look at the condition of holding yards and the dairy.
"Then, on the sustainability side, it (CSR program) will be looking at your whole farm - dairy platform, pasture area, annual cropping program, how many trees you have in paddocks, energy consumption and whether it is from renewable sources, recycling of water and supplementary feeds."
Part of the interest in supplementary feeds was to determine whether they contained products like soybean and palm oil - responsible for modern mass deforestation to grow them as cash crops and blamed for contributing to global warming, he explained.
Lactalis's CSR program has already run for several years in France, the United Kingdom and Ireland - where farm employee health and safety and quality of 'work life' are also audited aspects of dairy farm operation - and some of the typical animal welfare questions farmers there answered were shown to the forum.
Animal welfare sample questions included about udder health, cows' productive lifetimes, mortality, use of growth-promoting substances, use of antibiotics and use of animal-derived protein in feed.
For calves the sample questions covered colostrum intake, fibre in feed, castration of male cattle, disbudding or dehorning and tail docking.
Onfarm audit assessments required inspection of a sample of lactating and dry cows, comprising 7-25pc of a herd, depending on herd size, an assessment sample shown to the forum indicated.
Observations to be recorded during assessments include human avoidance behaviour, body condition, cleanliness of yards and cowshed, lameness and skin changes.
Mr Dinkelmann said Lactalis Australia had already appointed a local independent assessor for the regular onfarm audits required by the CSR program after it is officially launched.
He indicated the data would be collected, processed, consolidated and used anonymously to try to establish national and international average performance indicators and to compare national and international statistics for "pools" of Lactalis supplier farms.
The intention was also to identify "priority onfarm sustainability topics" Lactalis could discuss with its supplier farmers and to "communicate best practices and related impacts" to suppliers, Mr Dinkelmann indicated.
"We will send all the information to France," he said.
"They will analyse all this information, they will break it down into individual countries, they will look at countries compared to each other, different farming systems and eventually information on what can be addressed onfarm will filter back to our farms here."
Mr Dinkelmann then joined DPIRD senior development officer Mandy Curnow and Murdoch University associate professor Fran Hoyle in a panel session on carbon accounting and farm greenhouse gas emissions.
The forum was told that while carbon dioxide (CO2) was the main greenhouse gas of concern in relation to global warming, farming in general and dairy farming in particular produced volumes of far more volatile greenhouse gases in methane and nitrous oxide.
One tonne of enteric methane (from cow burps) had the equivalent environmental impact of 28t of CO2 and 1t of nitrous oxide (produced by working the topsoil, spreading nitrogen fertiliser and from animal manure) had the same impact as 265t of CO2, forum guests were told.
While WA's CO2-equivalent (CO2e) annual greenhouse gas emissions from energy production had increased from about 35 million tonnes in 1990 to more than 80mt in 2019, agriculture's CO2e greenhouse gas emissions had reduced from about 12mt a year to about 8mt a year over the same period, they were told.
Of WA's agricultural CO2e greenhouse gas emissions, enteric fermentation (cow burps again) was the clear major source, but it had generally been in decline since 2005 because of reducing stock numbers.
Over the same period, the next major source of WA agriculture's CO2e greenhouse gas emissions, soils - but still producing less than half of enteric fermentation volumes - had remained about the same, allowing for annual variation for better seasons like this one when more area is cropped, figures presented to the forum showed.
Last year the six WA shire council areas which produced the most greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural cattle were Albany, Esperance, Busselton, Manjimup, Harvey and Augusta-Margaret River.
Rabobank's head of sustainable business development and previously its national farm support manager, Crawford Taylor, told the forum that consumer attitudes were changing and regulatory oversight of farming was increasing.
Global investors will increasingly require transparency on sustainability risks and availability and cost of capital will incorporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards criteria, Mr Crawford said.
Access to future markets or barriers to market could also be determined by ESG standards and globally "agri-corporates" were increasingly adopting ESG objectives, he pointed out.
"Supply chains need to adapt, innovate - including inside the farm gate," Mr Crawford said.