The wave of coaches has invaded Brazil in recent years and has greatly influenced the behavior of people around the country. The word “coach” comes from the English language and means “trainer”. Like every big wave, there are a lot of good things and bad things when it happens. You know the bad ones very well and they have been happening out there, many charlatans with no knowledge have appeared and produced, in addition to comical and almost unbelievable videos, behaviors without much sense, which are lost over time like wildfire. On the other hand, there are a lot of good people in this area, with a lot of knowledge, shedding light on how we waste time doing things that are of little importance and helping a lot of people to put focus and time on what we should really care about.
We at SIA set up Farm Coaching, a very good training that provides technical knowledge in a very simple and didactic way, along with personal development. We have already organized 4 editions of Farm Coaching (3 in RS and 1 in PR), and the results and changes in people after the training are truly fantastic. Looking at this positive and transformative side, I stopped one day to think: – don’t animals also need a dose of “coach” in their lives??? Before you think I’m going crazy or imagine a speaker to a class of cows teaching NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) techniques, calm down! That’s not it. What I say is that we should lead animals to focus on what really matters for their performance, now does that make sense?
A great example of this logic of reasoning is linked to milk production systems and dairy cows. Dairy cows are extremely efficient at producing food in milk. For this to happen, when a Dutch cow wakes up every day in the morning, she faces a huge challenge, which is to eat approximately 19 kg of Dry Matter (food minus the water content), that is, her focus has to be on meeting this challenge. daily. (The figure below illustrates this challenge).
Photo: Prof. Malcolm Gigg
Fig. 1 – Illustration of the amount of dry matter that a dairy cow needs to eat daily.
Most of the times when a cow does not reach the expected production, it is attributed to her not being able to meet this daily challenge and one of the biggest limitations for this is TIME. Cows don’t have time to eat that much food throughout the day. From midnight, 10 to 12 hours are dark and ruminants eat practically nothing at night (only 3% on average), so we only have half of the hours available. Of this remainder, we have daily milking (twice a day).
The entire process of fetching the cows, waiting room and milking and returning to feeding, on average, lasts four hours in this role (two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon). We then have only eight hours of the day left for the cows to eat. Therefore, they need an average of three meals to consume all their food, as they cannot eat it all at once. We, as good coaches, must put together a perfect Time Management strategy and tactic so that the goal is achieved at the end of the day.
In confined systems, reaching the target is not very easy. When we talk about pasture systems, the challenge is even greater, as the cows need to go out to pasture and look for their food. How to organize time management for dairy cows based on pasture feeding? You may already be thinking, “it’s impossible and there’s no way cows can be very productive on pasture”. I’m sorry to tell you, but you’re wrong!
Here are two infallible time management tips for dairy cows on pasture, which we SIA technicians use and work very well for pasture cows to reach their daily target.
Tip 1: the pastures offered to dairy cows must be managed according to Rotational Grazing, so that when the cow lowers her head in the pasture she can eat more in less time, even having time to exercise her power of selection and choose what is most nutritious and best in the pasture for her.
Tip 2: Cows prefer to graze in the cooler hours of the day, early in the morning and late in the afternoon. They must be in the pasture for at least one to one and a half hours during these periods of the day.
In practice, the two tips above are rarely seen in the field, the most common thing, when it comes to pasture management, is that we find pasture that is overgrown or shaved too much, and this makes it very difficult for cows to ingest pasture in quantity. When pasture is overcooked, the pastures are coarse, the cows waste time getting all the pasture mass into their mouths and it is still low quality material. When they are very shaved, the pastures are of good quality, but the pieces are very small and filling the belly with a spoonful of “coffee” at the right time is impossible.
When we talk about grazing in the cooler hours, generally where are the cows right now on the overwhelming majority of properties? In milking of course! The sum of the two actions results in low interest of the cows in grazing, since after milking, the cows go to the pasture in the hottest hours (infernal heat) or when it is already dark, with their bellies full of silage and feed, to eat overcooked pasture.
To change this story, as good time managers for cows, we need to prepare a good pasture, with a good proportion of green leaves, really attractive, then manage them following the heights of Rotational Grazing, so that they can eat more in less time , fill their bellies quickly, with enough time to choose what is best available for them (quantity + quality). Furthermore, for them to graze willingly, we need them to be in the pastures as soon as the day dawns, to land in a good paddock, to allow them to graze early in the morning for at least 40 minutes to an hour, when the day starts to get light, so start milking a little later, around 7am – 7:30am.
This exact time varies a little depending on the region of the country you are in, but guarantee her time in the pasture (Note: don’t pay attention to the neighbors, who may call you lazy for milking the cows later, take the opportunity to drink a good breakfast with your family). At the end of the day the logic is the same, but the strategy is the opposite, start milking earlier, so that when the cows enter the pasture they have at least an hour and a half of light and a cooler temperature to graze in peace.
Like all routine changes in dairy cows, this must be done very calmly and carefully, so that they feel the stimuli, understand the changes that are happening and the impact on production is as small as possible.
In addition to these Coach tips, what other actions can we put into practice to better manage the cows’ time and make the animals’ work easier? Follow the premise of understanding nature and promoting well-being, so I’m sure they will repay you with much more performance!!!
Text: Armindo Barth Neto – SIA technical consultant
Image: Prof. Malcolm Gigg
