- English
Bons: ‘After starting with OmniGen my antibiotic usage greatly dropped’
Bons Holsteins, top Holstein breeders with a lot of national and international dairy show titles on their name, have their farm with 60 dairy cows in the West of the Netherlands. Family Bons is always striving for better cows. Breeding for perfection is the slogan of their farm. To reach these perfect cows, cows needs to be healthy and that is why we want to prevent diseases.
“Health is one of the most important topics on our farm. Only healthy cows reach the perfect shape.”
Walking trough his young stock barn, Bons emphasizes the importance of preventing diseases during this important stage of life. Every disease a calf is suffering from, Bons will note in his registration system. Evaluation of their showcows after many years have shown Bons that almost all the best show cows of Bons Holsteins, never had any diseases during youth phase. Bons Holsteins is already feeding OmniGen to their calves since 2014.
“Calves that had to deal with diseases will most probably never reach the top”
Bons started feeding OmniGen only to his show cows, where he realized that these cows where more able to deal with the (heat)stress during the shows in comparison with his Dutch showing colleagues. Cows ate clearly more and recovers much faster from (heat)stress.
“Our cows were much more relaxed and ate clearly more during the hot climate during the European Holstein championship show in Colmar of 2016”
“The frequency of our vet visits dropped to that extend that our vet asked me whether we switched to another vet practice.”
Regarding to the desired reduction of antibiotics also Bons likes to see a decrease in use of medicines. After starting OmniGen the first signs of antibiotic reduction became clear. This trend became even more spectacular clear after a longer period of feeding OmniGen. Now after 2 years of feeding OmniGen his antibiotic use dropped significantly.
“Our antibiotic use dropped already after a short period of feeding OmniGen and after 2 years the decrease is even more spectacular. The decrease of antibiotic use in the last year was more than 65%”
Top management and treating the cows in the best way is characteristic for Bons Holsteins. Already for years his feed intake was highly above the average level. To keep the feed intake high, even during periods of heat stress Bons always strives for the best feed quality and cow comfort. Now using OmniGen he really sees the additional effect during periods of heatstress. Cows are much less suffering from heat stress and the feed intake is even higher than benchmark cows during hot periods.
“Feed intake was always high on my farm, but especially during heat stress my cows are eating significant more. OmniGen really contributes to the high goals I strive for!”
