X-Zelit attributed to healthier cows at a Devon Farm

John Bacon and Ian Vanstone milk 350 Holstein Friesians at RHJ Dairy in Devon. The herd is all year round calving.

The farm has been using the dry cow treatment – X-Zelit for over 7 years.

John comments, “Previous to using X-Zelit we were milking 300 cows and found approximately 20% of the herd were coming down with milk fever. As well as treating those cows, as a precaution we’d always give the 3rd calvers upwards a bottle of calcium.”

“Since using X-Zelit, it is very rare that we get any milk fever. With the herd size now expanded to 350, I’d say it’s reduced to approximately 3% across the year. It’s not just the milk fever reduction where there has been a benefit, we don’t see as many problems with calvings. We’ve had no retained cleansings and the cows just have more energy once they’ve calved. We are also finding they are transitioning a lot quicker.”

“We actually stopped using X-Zelit, one winter when we were struggling for space to group the dry cows. It really didn’t work out and we won’t be stopping again as it made such a big difference!”

〈 BACK

Over the last year we have been taking a good look at our dry cow processes to improve health and fertility. As part of this we spoke to a number of farmers with herd sizes ranging from 90 through to 2000 cows and they all recommended using X-Zelit pre-calving. So, we tried X-Zelit in a dry cow nut and we were really impressed with it. Since using it, we’ve had very few issues with our calving cows, they are calving really easily and cleanly. I’m not too sure why it works but it just does, it’s a great product!