After a decade of farm visits, the same mistakes recur with remarkable consistency. None of them are exotic. All of them are expensive.

1. Feeding the herd as one animal

A cow giving twenty litres and one giving five get the same scoop. The high yielder is underfed and milks off her own body; the low yielder is overfed and gets fat. Group animals by yield and ration each group separately.

2. Ignoring the dry period

A dry cow is not idle — she is building a calf and preparing an udder. Underfeeding through the last two months of gestation produces a weak calf and a poor lactation. Steaming up with 1.5–2 kg a day is not optional.

3. Switching feed abruptly

Rumen microbes need seven to ten days to adapt. An overnight switch causes a digestive upset that gets blamed on the new feed, and the farm switches back — having learned the wrong lesson.

4. Concentrate without fibre

Pushing concentrate to chase yield while cutting roughage stops rumination, drops rumen pH and causes sub-acute acidosis. Yield falls, butterfat falls further, and the cause is invisible unless you are watching for cud-chewing.

5. Treating minerals as optional

Mineral mixture is the first thing dropped when costs are tight, and it is one of the cheapest inputs on the farm. The fertility problems that follow cost several times the saving.

6. Storing feed badly

Bags on a damp floor, against a wall, in an unventilated room. Moisture drives mould growth and aflatoxin, and vitamin potency degrades with time and heat. Store on pallets, away from walls, and use within the shelf life.

7. Neglecting water

Milk is roughly 87% water. A cow needs sixty to eighty litres a day, more in summer, and she needs it clean. This is the cheapest nutrient available and the most commonly short.

8. Judging a feed in two weeks

Feed changes need a full eight weeks to show their real effect — longer for mineral supplementation, where tissue reserves are being rebuilt. Farms that judge on a fortnight end up cycling through brands and never giving any of them a fair trial.

Keep written records. Daily yield, fat and SNF from your collection slips, and body condition scored monthly. Without records you are comparing this month to a memory, and memory is generous.