herd health

Herd Health Planning Pillar

Why?

Herd Health Planning is a bespoke process designed to make positive health in the UK dairy herd.

Through your vet (and, or consultant), you can instigate management procedures which lead to improved health, increased efficiencies in production and positive economic benefit.

The first step of Herd Health Planning is milk recording. The TSDG aims to have all producers undertaking this within six months of signing a Tesco contract. We know that many producers are already actively milk recording their herd, and understand it to be best practice.

How?

Milk recording helps achieve sustainable dairy farming by increasing value and reducing costs:

Benefits of milk recording:

Comparative individual cow management information within the herd gives improved management decision making
Comparative herd management information between herds allows you to benchmark performance, focusing management attention
Sharing quantified data with third party such as vets and consultants leads to improved management decision making
On average, animals at market with authenticated records achieve a £200 premium
Quantified animal health and welfare information from the supply chain adds value to the end product

Many Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in the UK dairy herd, such as average cell count and 100 day in calf rates have been worsening over the past 3 years. The Sustainable Dairy Project aims to deliver sustainability in the long term by helping Tesco farmers measure KPI’s and take action.

Benefit
A cow with a cell count average of 200,000 per ml will be costing £100 through lost production.