Van Puijenbroek: 'Go through the summer without mastitis, it's possible!'

Ron van Puijenbroek milked healthy during the past summer months without mastitis. Maintaining
resistance is proving to be a successful strategy...

Resistance up to standard

Everything starts with a good immune resistance, says Ron. If you know that the resistance is up to
standard, you can enjoy milking with peace of mind. I just want to milk healthy cows milk all cows
easily and quickly with lower somatic cell counts and mastitis. In this way I have enough time for
other activities on or outside the farm and my cows can age more healthily, Ron continues. He
therefore wants to increase the lifetime production at discharge from 43,000 to 50,000 kg of milk
within two years.

Change of strategy

We milked less hard last year, compared to previous years. We come from a production of more
than 37 kg per day and have tried to increase the balance with less costs. Production has decreased slightly due to, among other things, the use of grazing and lighter feeding.
The bottom line is that this strategy can work, but to get the best balance you just have to milk hard
and feed well. As long as you know to the nearest cent what goes into the cows and what comes
out, you can steer well and achieve a high balance, Ron explains convincingly.
"I just want to milk healthy cows and milk all cows easily and quickly, with lower somatic cell counts
and mastitis.."