They didn’t take a summer hit this year

Summer was quite bearable in the Midwest this year. We didn’t have those long stretches of hot and humid weather that are expected annually. That being said, this past summer was easier on the cows. During a recent trip to South Dakota, we stopped at Crosswind Jerseys in Elkton, S.D., and visited with manager Steve Temperli. The farm milks about 1,000 Jerseys and Jersey-Holstein crossbreds. Steve, along with his parents, moved to their current location in 2004 from Ontario, Canada. While hot summers can usually take a hit to their herd, “the cows are just doing really well right now,” Temperli says. The herd is seeing excellent results in the areas of protein test results, SCC, reproduction, and hoof health.

Temperli attributes this to a few things, not just the unusually cool summer. With higher grain prices this summer, Temperli started feeding a higher forage diet. Because of this, protein test results are now higher than ever. The herd is averaging close to 63 pounds of milk, 4.7 percent fat, 3.75 percent protein, and 120,000 SCC. Cows are bedded with sand (which Temperli swears by) that is recycled in a sand lane. The entire milking herd is averaging about two individual cases of mastitis each week.

Close attention to stocking density is another practice that Temperli gives credit when discussing their herd’s recent successes. “I’m pretty particular about how my pens are stocked,” he added. First-lactation cows are mixed with second- and greater-lactation cows which he knows isn’t always the norm. Temperli is comfortable with this, though, because pens are never stocked beyond 110 percent, fresh cow pens are usually at about 90 percent stocked, and pen moves are always minimized.