The upkeep of farm roadways to allow for sufficient cow flow is an essential element of grazing, grass utilisation and the overall grazing rotation on dairy farms.
An optimal cow flow on your farm roadways will give way to maintaining an efficient utilisation of grass, which is one of the key drivers of profit on dairy farms.
In Ireland, we pride ourselves with high quality pasture production over a long growing season which gives us a preferable look to consumers as pasture based diets offer environmental benefits and improved animal welfare.
A lot of dairy farms around the country have insufficient roadways in place which hinders cow flow, affecting the herd’s movement between paddocks and the milking parlour.
The improvement of farm roadway infrastructure is hugely vital for efficient farm management and animal welfare.
Researching cow flow
Teagasc carried out a study which included a total of 55 farms with herd sizes ranging from 30 to 760 cows – the farms were selected based on herd size and geographical location.
A roadway quality metric was developed to evaluate the condition of farm roadway, which was based on three variable assessed on each section, as follows:
- Roadway width;
- Surface condition score (ranging from one which was inadequate for animal movement, to five, which was optimal);
- The presence of a congestion point on a roadway.
All of this information was compiled to use as an estimate of mean cow flow on each farm, defined as cows moved per minute (CPM).
The information gathered can be used to emphasise the importance of farm roadway infrastructure for efficient farm management and animal welfare.
The on-farm survey results were as follows:
Herd size (cows) <100 100-149 150-199 200-249 >250 Number of herds 11 18 8 5 13 Sample size of roadways (m) 130 260 124 87 292 Length of sections examined (m) 87 129 114 157 185 Mean roadway width (m) 2.97 2.94 3.3 3.6 3.89 Range roadway width (m) 1.7-6 1.2-5 1.8-7.7 2.5-5.3 1.9-10 Roadway width relative to herd size 0.76 0.7 0.69 0.74 0.62 Mean surface condition score 2.46 2.75 2.81 2.64 3.06 Public crossings 10 20 20 4 41 Mean total farm CPM 35.6 36.6 41 43.7 55.4
Results
There was 893 roadway sections on 55 farms that were assessed with many roadway width being suboptimal for the number of cows on the farm.
The standard should be 3.5m wide for a 50-cow herd, with another 0.5m allowed for every additional 50 cows thereafter.
The study assessed that, on average, the farm roadways were 70% of the recommended width relative to the herd with on 4% of the roadways being an optimal width for the herd size.
Roadway width and surface condition were found to significantly affect the number of cows moved per minute (CPM, and the common denominator was better cow flow when roadways width and surface were of a good standard.
Measured cow flow (CPM) with varying roadway width and surface, with a surface condition index (SCI) ranging from one to five, were as follows:
Width (m) SCI 1 SCI 2 SCI 3 SCI 4 SCI 5 1 12.4 13.8 15.2 16.6 21.3 1.5 13.4 15.6 21.5 25.1 32.1 2 14.4 17.4 27.8 33.6 42.9 2.5 15.5 21.2 34 42.2 53.6 3 16.5 25 40.3 50.7 64.4 3.5 17.5 28.8 46.6 59.3 75.2 4 18.5 32.6 52.8 67.8 86 4.5 19.6 36.4 59.1 76.3 96.8 5 20.6 40.2 65.4 84.9 107.6
Public road crossings had a significant negative impact on CPM, as it was found to reduce CPM by 32.7% on average, whereas congestion points did not have a major impact on CPM.
The study found that only 14.2% of farm roadways were in an optimal surface condition to allow for sufficient cow movement, with 24.4% being completely inadequate.
A number of factors could have affected the surface condition including the roadway width, congestion points, and the presence of a grass verge.
Overall, the study found that roadway infrastructure has not adapted to meet increased herd demands on dairy farms across the country.
It is essential for a farmer to ensure that their roadways are of an adequate width, a good surface condition with fewer congestion points to allow for increased cow throughput.
Assessing the width and surface condition of your roadways should be done, as it has a serious impact on cow flow and will save time and hassle on yourself and the cows.