The Dairy Australia Animal Husbandry and Genetics Survey (AHGS) tracks dairy farmer attitudes, behaviours and practices relating to animal health, welfare, fertility, antimicrobial use and herd genetics.
The results assist Dairy Australia and the broader industry to prioritise research, development and extension (RD&E) activities as well as policy.
It also helps identify targets for improving on-farm performance and ensuring practices are aligned with community expectations.
"The 2022 AHGS results highlight improvements seen across a variety of animal husbandry practices, including disbudding and pain relief provision, supplying first milking colostrum and ensuring calves are transported at an appropriate age," Dairy Australia's national animal health and fertility lead Stephanie Bullen said.
The Australian dairy industry has three key advisory groups for setting industry policies and sustainability targets.
These are Australian Dairy Farmers (ADF) farm operations policy advisory group, Dairy Moving Forward animal husbandry, Milk Quality and Reproduction Communities of Interest (2010-2022) and Australian Dairy Industry Sustainability Framework (Goal 7 - Provide best care for animals for whole of life).
Survey highlights
Calf management and welfare
Of all the calves born on survey respondent's farms in the past 12 months, 35 per cent were kept as replacement heifers for the dairy herd.
In total, 26pc were raised for dairy beef.
Heifer calves sold for export comprised 5pc of calves, and 23pc of calves were sent to an abattoir, calf scales or saleyards as five to 30-day old bobby calves.
Healthy calves euthanised at birth accounted for just 1pc of the annual calf drop, indicating that most calves managed through early life slaughter pathways are processed through abattoirs at five to 30 days.
The jointly-funded Dairy Australia and Meat and Livestock Australia project Growing Beef from Dairy aims to increase the number of Australian dairy farmers adopting best practice dairy beef production strategies.
This is to optimise the economic viability of dairy beef production and reduce the need for early life calf slaughter.
Biosecurity planning and practices
Over the past three years, there has been a slight increase in the percentage of farms nationally with a written biosecurity plan (now 62pc).
As the Australian dairy industry is a signatory to the Emergency Animal Disease Response Agreement (EADRA), all dairy farms must have a written biosecurity plan.
Therefore, more work is required to help farmers meet this requirement.
Among those survey participants who reported that they have a written biosecurity plan, 68pc stated they always follow the plan and 32pc said they sometimes follow the plan.
This suggests that a greater focus needs to be placed on implementation.
To download a simple, user friendly biosecurity plan template for your farm, visit dairyaustralia.com.au/eadpreparedness.
Antimicrobial stewardship
The Australian dairy industry, under the Australian Dairy Sustainability Framework, has made a commitment to antimicrobial stewardship.
The dairy industry uses antibiotics responsibly to protect the health and welfare of our animals.
Nationally, 14pc of survey respondents stated that they use antibiotic rumen modifiers in the feed to manage ruminal acidosis in their milking herd.
However, this varies significantly by region (2 in 5 Western Dairy farms to 1 in 20 in Subtropical Dairy) and herd size (23pc of herds with more than 700 cows to 10pc of herds with less than 150 cows).
Of those herds where rumen modifiers are used, Monensin is the most commonly used (70pc of), followed by Virginiamycin (25pc) and Tylosin (15pc).
A blanket (whole herd) antibiotic dry cow therapy strategy is used on a significantly higher percentage of farms than a selective (part-herd) antibiotic dry cow therapy strategy - 60pc and 31pc respectively.
Among those farms using a selective dry cow therapy strategy, the vast majority maintain clinical mastitis records (92pc), have an average BMCC of less than 250,000 cells/ml (8pc), and have a low level of clinical mastitis (75pc).
More than half conduct at least one herd test prior to dry off (60pc) and have not detected Strep ag in their herd (53pc).
However, only 27pc of farms using a selective dry cow strategy meet all five recommended criteria for deciding to use this approach.
Find out more and download the full Dairy Australia Animal Husbandry survey here.
Article supplied by Dairy Australia
