If you're in charge of cattle or deer, you must meet legal obligations like registering your farm, tagging and registering your animals with approved RFID tags, and recording all animal movements within 48 hours.

Body condition loss in early lactation can significantly reduce your herd's wellbeing and productivity. Cows often lose condition in the first 10 days after calving, so ensure your herds' energy requirements are met to stay on track.

In this episode of Talking Dairy, we tackle the challenge of managing mastitis. Experts Mike Shallcrass and Jane Lacy-Hulbert offer practical tips on detecting and handling high SCC cows and strategies to prevent mastitis and improve milk quality.

When it comes to breeding more efficient cows, why is genetic gain so important and how can NZAEL’s online tools help? Join us as we talk about the latest in dairy genetics and animal evaluation.

Early preparation of your winter grazing paddocks minimises sediment loss and movement. Use back fences and portable troughs to reduce soil damage by limiting unnecessary cow movement.

Breeding Worth (BW) is an index that ranks cows and bulls on their ability to breed profitable, efficient replacements. This page explains how BW is used to create herds resilient to changes and disease, therefore increasing farm profits.

A breeding value is an estimate of an animal's genetic merit for a particular trait. Using breeding values to select cows and bulls to be the parents of the next generation is the most effective way to achieve genetic improvement.

Cow performance measurement lets you identify the most and least productive cows in your herd.

Effective cow data recording and performance measurement on your farm can make the difference in breeding decisions.

This tool estimates the latest date to dry cows off to ensure they meet BCS targets at calving.

Contagious mastitis in cows is often spread during milking. Minimise the spread by maintaining healthy teat ends, using well-operating milking equipment, and disinfecting teats after milking.

Backing gates are tools used in the dairy yard to improve cow flow into the dairy, leading to more efficient milking. Moving the gate little and often takes up space in the yard, while still providing cows enough room is important.

Clusters in dairy milking are a set of components that include a claw and four fully assembled cups. Selecting the right clusters and setting them up correctly will increase milking efficiency and improve animal health.

Once-a-day (OAD) milking is the practice of milking cows only once during a 24-hour period. This page covers the reasons and options for implementing OAD milking on your farm.

The page focuses on the importance of well-designed and maintained intersections between the yard and track on a dairy farm.

Copper deficiency in cattle, common during winter/early spring or in fast-growing calves over six months, can lead to issues like weight loss, reduced milk yields, reproductive problems, and anaemia in cows.

Pregnancy testing is key in managing your dairy herd. It tells you which cows are pregnant and their conception time, which helps you to plan effectively.

Salmonellosis is the most common disease associated with acute diarrhoea in adult dairy cows. Salmonella bacteria from cattle can also be transferred to humans, causing significant illness.

Giant buttercup, one of 14 weedy Ranunculus species in New Zealand, is harmful to dairy pastures because cows find it distasteful due to its toxin, protoanemonin. This weed spreads across dairy farms, damaging pasture quality.