Maycillin Delivers on Ioan Davies' Aim to Reduce Antibiotic Use in his Dairy Herd

A Welsh dairy farmer has adopted a new strategy for managing udder health, slashing overall antibiotic use in his herd and capturing income from previously unsaleable milk.

 

Cows with high cell counts were pushing up the herd’s average somatic cell count (SCC) at 300-acre Penlan Farm, Llanwrda, and threatening Ioan Davies’ milk price. To combat this, Mr Davies invested in cell count readers to flag up these problem cows and, in conjunction with testing, he gave those animals a bolus designed to be used as an alternative to antibiotics in clinical and sub clinical challenges.

 

Some of these cows had readings of 800,000 cells/ml and higher before they were bolused, however, cell counts in 70% of the cows given Maycillin were below 250,000 cells/ml after just one treatment.

 

“As with antibiotics, we don’t expect Maycillin to work on every cow so I’m really pleased to getting positive results in seven out of ten cows. It’s as good, if not better than we would expect with antibiotics’’ says Mr Davies.

 

He runs a flying herd of 250 cows of mixed breeds including Holstein Friesian, crossbreds, Ayrshires and Jerseys which he sources from livestock marts and direct from farm. Cows are producing an average annual milk yield of 8,000 litres at 4.1% butterfat and 3.4% protein.

 

The Bactoscan is never higher than 50 – it is currently 35 – and the herd’s cell count average is now 188,000 cells/ml, a figure which Mr Davies says he could never have achieved without Maycillin, which releases allicin, an active substance in garlic.

 

Cows are tested with the cell count reader which uses a traffic light system – cows that fall into the red and amber zone are given two Maycillin boluses. The highest yielding cows in that group or those that are prone to mastitis during lactation are given two boluses three weeks later.

 

“I am now not spending anything on antibiotics, I am not getting milk price penalties for high cell counts and I can sell the milk from the cows that have had the bolus – if I had given them antibiotics I would have had to hold their milk back for 12 milkings.”

 

“It’s as good, if not better than we would expect with antibiotics’’

 

"Some of my best cows are giving 12,000 litres so that is a lot of milk to withhold.’’

 

Responsible use of antibiotics is an approach Mr Davies has embraced, only giving dry cow therapy to cows that need it at drying. For three years, sealant only has been used on cows that haven’t had a case of mastitis in the previous lactation. Last year, 80% of the herd was dried off without antibiotic tubes.

 

The herd has an all-year-round calving pattern and was at grass this year for a record seven months, from March 25th to October 23rd. At housing, cows receive a TMR and any that yield more than 21 litres get concentrates fed to yield in the parlour, to a maximum of 4.5kg per milking. Improving udder health has made Ioan’s job more enjoyable and his income has improved too.

 

“The boluses certainly work, our cell counts over the last six months have been so good that the system must be working. It is definitely worth giving them a shot.’’