Peter Smith is an upstate New York family farmer, and part of LT Smith & Sons, where he milks around 1700 cows with his brother as the 3rd generation. He learned about AHV when a trusted nutritionist he had worked with for years came over to work on AHV side of things.

Happy With Udder Health, Moving on to Preventative Protocols

Pete says “he was pretty excited about the products, and he talked with me about opportunities, and we thought it could impact some challenges we were facing. We started using it for udder health challenges about 2 years ago, and then using Metri and Aspi for preventative therapy for the fresh cows about 14 months ago.”

Smith says “about 1/3 of our culls were udder health related. So we’ve been happy. It wasn’t hard to assess the impact financially and less frequent health challenges, better health function, more milk production, cow happiness. Now we are only culling 1 of 7 culls for udder health reasons. It definitely worked to resolve that issue. Plus, we are having 10-12 cows a day more in the tank by reducing those in hospital or withhold. That really adds up in a year.”

Fresh Cow Proactive Approach

LT Smith & Sons is now administering AHV Protocols to every fresh cow. Metri, Milk Start Bolus and Aspi as a proactive approach. Pete says “the protocols are color coded and really clear. It’s easy to monitor and administer. Plus, we don’t have to worry about hot tanks. And, we don’t have many cows in hospital anymore, so all that milk isn’t being wasted. Plus I think this is the way consumers and regulations are heading with a more natural approach.”

AHV Makes Sense

Smith shares that he purchases all his milk animals and sells offspring to beef, so keeping his cows in the herd reduces replacement costs. He says he always has some “older girls 10-12 lactations” in the herd, and he likes to give them a little extra support after a hard birth and that AHV helps him keep those cows in the milk tank long past when they have paid for themselves. He also says that 17% of his herd is over 5 lactations and the goal is to keep them producing as long as possible to avoid the replacement cost, which AHV has helped him do. And that using AHV even allows him to sell culls for beef, which is also a positive financial decision. He replies “long story short, come back in 5 years and I’m extremely confident that we will be using AHV protocols as it just makes sense from a herd health and financial standpoint.”