Description
Franck Le Breton and Maud Cloarec have a herd of 47 dairy cows in an all-grass system (69 ha). The cows produce 190,000 litres of milk with spring block calving, are milked once a day without any concentrates.
Calving is grouped together from March 1st to mid-April, in order to adjust the highest needs of the cows to the period of full grass growth in the spring. The production level is 4,200 litres of milk per cow produced with maximum grazing.
The milking parlour is thus closed for 2 months in January and February. Work is also greatly reduced in winter. To move towards a completely successful economical system and towards an optimization of working time, once a day milking all year round was also implemented a few years later.
It took four years to group the calving period and close the milking parlour. At the time, calving used to take place all year round. To reach this grouped period, it has been necessary to gradually shift the calving of the cows and take some cows out of the herd. To succeed in spring block calvings, two key points must be mastered: reproduction and grass management. They pay great attention to insemination: cows in heat are observed and marked from the beginning of April, i.e. two cycles before the start of inseminations on May 25th. Heifers calve at 24 months. Cows and heifers are scanned in September.
Spring is the most important and busiest period of the year, but summer is then calmer and easier for family life.
