At this stage, February-born Holstein Friesian heifer calves should be weighing 174kg or 30% of mature liveweight, presuming mature liveweight is 580kg.

If the mature cows are smaller, such as Jersey crossbreds weighing 500kg, then the calves should be weighing 150kg today. Generally speaking, this has been a good year for thrive, but on farms that got a lot of rain over the past weeks thrive will be less, particularly in calves. The trick now is to keep all calves thriving.

Many people weigh calves but do nothing with the results. The objective of weighing is not to find out the average weight, but to identify the calves that are behind target and give them preferential treatment.

Run the light calves in a separate mob and give them better quality grass and/or 1kg or 2kg of meal. If the main bunch are on target and growing more than 0.7kg/day, there is no need to be feeding meal, at least not for another month or so.

Continue to dose calves for worms, as necessary.

Make sure to stick to the dosing intervals for whatever product you are using, to avoid overdosing. Remember that if you are vaccinating the herd for IBR, the calves will need two shots if it’s their first vaccine.

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