Optimizing Animal health by using more natural products on Pennsylvania dairy farm

Travis Jones and his family operate two dairies—Maystone Dairy in Newville, PA with 250 cows and Molly Pitcher Milk in Shippensburg, PA with around 850 cows. Travis has been using AHV products for a few months, but is not new to businesses and how to run them for maximum ROI. His family has numerous companies, including 22,000 acres of crops, a butcher shop, and others. He farmed as a child, worked at his family’s butcher shop for 5 years, and then went into the dairy 3 years ago, adding an additional dairy (Molly Pitcher) to his portfolio a year ago. He farms in traditional ways but is open minded to new ways of doing things if they prove to have merit.

A good relationship with the AHV Farm Advisor

Jones tried AHV products and protocols because of his sales rep, Les Baker, whom he knew from previous positions. He says he always liked Les but hadn’t purchased from him before, but this product was an easier trial for him, so he took a chance. He uses AHV Quick, Aspi, Extra, Milk Start and Metri. His best success comes from Milk Start and Metri.

His protocol for Fresh Cows is to give a Metri bolus and a Milk Start Paste at time of calving. For retained placenta (RP) cows, he gives a Metri, Aspi, and Milk Start Paste on day 1, on Day 2 he gives another Metri and Milk Start Paste, and on Day 3, he also gives a Metri and a Milk Start Paste if needed.

For his Udder Health Protocols at Molly Pitcher dairy, for cows with less than 100 DIM SCC>500, he will administer 1 Quick, 1 Extra, and 1 Aspi, repeated as needed daily for immunity responses.

Calcium challenges tackled

He reports that he had 2 cows with with a calcium deficiency and within 6 hours they were up and running around after being administered with the AHV protocols which impressed him, and intrigued him to continue using AHV products. He says he’s around 90 lbs of milk average, and his favorite thing about these protocols is that he doesn’t have to withhold milk. He also reports that it is “much easier” to handle the cow once for 5 minutes with one bolus and put her back with the herd instead of keeping her separated for treatment and worry about milk from a bad quarter contaminating a tank.

The milk is kept in the tank

Also, from a financial perspective, he enjoys that he can keep that milk in the tank instead of losing out on 9-10 days of production, even though he used the withdrawn milk for the calves, he would prefer it go into the production bulk tank for sales.

Travis mentions that AHV is not a miracle, but used correctly, he would definitely recommend it to other farmers, since his typical protocol costs around $170 plus 9-10 days of milk withdrawal, so AHV protocol is much cheaper, not to mention keeping money in the tank, especially for farmers that don’t feed the milk to their calves. Travis is excited to have another option for managing his cattle and will continue to use AHV protocols on his farms as he believes in the results.

He also reports that for RP cows, giving Metri and Milk Start cleaned out their RP within 6-12 hours, “surely” preventing further challenges down the road. He was very impressed with the quick turnaround on RP cows using AHV!

Inexpensive program for calves

Travis also has 400-600 head of beef steers, heifers and cows, and he would potentially try AHV on those if it came in powder format, but he doesn’t have too many issues with those cattle. With his calves, he reports that he doesn’t have issues and his current program is very inexpensive so he will stay with what he’s doing, but he likes to know that AHV has protocols there if anything should change and he likes to have the AHV products in his back pocket in light of changing drug rules. He prefers to use more natural methods if possible.