Last updated 22:16, Tuesday, 09 September 2008

We have just come to the end of Team GB’s best Olympics for 100 years. Hasn’t it been great? We can all admire the athletes and their dedication, skill and fitness.

Champion: We forget our dairy cows are like finely-tuned athletes

I think we forget that our dairy cows are like Olympic athletes!

They were made to produce one calf a year, live outside on grass and produce enough milk for one calf a year. So what have we done over the last 100 years?

We now expect them to give 10,000 litres or more, live inside on concrete for at least six months – often in overcrowded and damp conditions – and eat a diet that is far removed from what they would eat naturally.

Instead of milk being removed a little at a time, we remove up to 30 litres twice a day. We prefer cows that milk quickly but forget that short teats and open canals increase the risk of mastitis.

Cows are unable to eat enough after calving to maintain their body weight. This is the underlying cause of poor fertility in dairy cattle. It is not in the cow’s interest to get pregnant when she is still losing weight.

So, like athletes, cows are performing at a very high level in terms of feed input and energy output.

They are on a knife edge – it takes very little to tilt them over the edge.

It doesn’t take much for an athlete to get injured or get ill to stop them competing. In the same way a cow’s health is easily hit if she is not looked after properly.

Any lameness, any infection such as mastitis or digestive problems such as acidosis will knock her sideways.

We need to learn how to look after our cattle in the same way that Olympic athletes are looked after and cosseted. They need good diets with 24-hour access, with adequate levels of fibre, with enough room for every cow to eat at the same time. Cows need a lot of trough space to drink – lack of water is often a limiting factor affecting cows’ health and production.

Cows suffer a lot of bullying in big groups, and also when changing groups as they need to establish their hierarchy. So building design is important to prevent bullying eg avoiding dead ends and allowing lots of space for movement and feeding.

Cows need somewhere comfortable to lie down. Cubicle design is important. A bit of sawdust sprinkled on concrete in a 7ft by 3ft 6in cubicle is simply hopeless.

They need plenty of space for exercise and to be able to display normal behaviour, especially bulling signs.

We have seen a number of problems recently. A lot of them have been due to the weather of course – with cows having to come inside.

We have done more displaced stomach operations than normal for the summer. There has also been a surge in clinical mastitis with damp and wet beds both inside and outside.

We have seen quite a bit of summer mastitis and cases of husk are just starting to be reported.

One thing we must do to keep our cattle and sheep healthy is to vaccinate against bluetongue.

The vaccination programme has been successful so far, but we in Cumbria and Northumberland need to do our bit as well, for the sake of the rest of the country and Scotland.

We are now in the bluetongue protection zone. Now that we are in the zone, cattle and sheep can move freely into and out of Cumbria, but not into Scotland. Movements into Scotland will only be allowed if your vet has vaccinated the animals himself, and can certify this.

We need to be on the look-out for the signs of bluetongue. We had a suspect case only last week, which was fortunately ruled out after blood testing.

This article is not meant to be all gloom and doom. There is a real sense of optimism about at the moment and I think that even the government will learn to appreciate farmers as food producers for the nation.

The bluetongue strategy is a positive one; we are in the fortunate position of being a step ahead of the virus at the moment. France has had a lot of bluetongue outbreaks already this year, and we need to remain vigilant.

If we look after our cows, they will look after us.

If they are comfortable, secure, well fed and protected from infection they will not only be happier but they will produce a lot more milk and get in calf better.