With more wet and cold weather this week, turnout of cattle may well be delayed until the end of the month, placing housing facilities under pressure.
As spring calving progresses and freshly calved cows remaining housed until weather improves, it is crucial that hygiene in housing is seen as a leading priority for suckler farmers.
Getting calves off to the best possible start in life is always worth the time and money invested.
For the programme farmers, this begins before calving with the vaccination of cows for scour to reduce the level of disease challenge to the newborn calf.
While time is limited, every effort is made to ensure calves get adequate colostrum within the first few hours of life.
Clean and dry
Keeping calving pens clean and dry is also important. Calving pens are a primary source of infection, as the newborn calf can come directly into contact with parasites and bacteria before receiving its first feed of colostrum.
While it may not be practical to clean pens out every day, in most cases the programme farmers clean out calving pens every two to three days, depending on the level of use. Once calved, cows are moved from calving pens within two days.
Calves should always have access to a dry bedded creep area away from the cow.
Wet bedding allows infection to build up. It also reduces the calf’s core body temperature, making it more susceptible to disease.
Pens should always be well-bedded with straw. As a rule of thumb, you should be able to kneel down on a straw bed without getting your knees damp. If they are damp, apply more straw.
Week in review
Ground conditions remain difficult after further rainfall over the past week.Attention is being placed on keeping calving pens and calf creeps clean to reduce the risk of disease.Spring calving is progressing well without any major issues.Freshly calved cows are on good-quality ad-lib silage plus 1kg to 2kg of concentrates to boost milk production.Oliver McKenna, Eskra,
Co Tyrone
Calving 70% of the
herd in five weeks
Calving started on 13 February and I have 27 cows calved out of 38. There are 10 homebred heifers calved in this group at 24 months of age.
So far, there have been no issues in terms of calving difficulty or sick calves, which is always a relief.
This is partly down to selecting easy-calving bulls and having cows in good condition prior to calving.
The cows are calving to On-dit, Keeldrum Clio, Keeldrum Capone and GPZ.
The heifers are calving down to a Red Angus bull called Lanigan Red Deep Canyon and the Salers bull Rio. All cows and heifers were bred to AI.
Calf sires
I have been increasing the amount of AI used in the herd in recent years. With only three cows served by my stock bull last year, I have since sold him, as it is hard to justify the cost of a bull to cover a handful of cows.
I have used Rio for a few years now. He has always delivered good calves that are lively at birth.
His male calves grow well and have killed out with carcase weights up on 400kg.
This is the first year I have used Deep Canyon and I am happy with his calves. The bull has great figures behind him also, being easy calving, and he has five stars for both terminal and maternal traits on the €uro-Star system.
One other reason for selecting the Red Angus was to bring some colour through to heifers that might help their sale price in the mart.
Diet
I would expect the 11 cows that have still to calve will do so within the next fortnight. They are being fed ad-lib first-cut silage and pre-calving minerals. Cows were housed in a condition score of 3.25 to 3.5. They were fed average-quality baled silage to reduce body condition to a score of 3.0 at calving.
Once calved, cows are offered ad-lib first-cut silage and 1kg of a 16% protein ration costing £180/t. They are still offered powdered minerals also. First-cut silage has a D-value of 67, but protein is high at 13.7% with dry matter at 23%.
Post-calving
Cows are calved in individual pens and are given two days with their newborn calf before moving to a larger loose pen. I converted a roofed silo into a loose house for cows and calves by straw-bedding the floor and using a ring feeder to offer silage. Cows can spend up to a week in this pen before moving on to slats, with their calf given access to a straw-bedded creep pen. It all depends on how calving progresses, as some days there is greater pressure for pen space than others.
Autumn calving
The autumn-calving herd was scanned in February, as breeding finished at Christmas. I had 21 cows in this group, but only served 19. Two were culled.
From the 19 scanned, there are 17 in-calf. There are also nine heifers from a group of 10 served and set to calve in the autumn. Anything not in calf will be fattened. The autumn calvers are on a silage-only diet and will be weaned before turnout.
Beef and store cattle
This year, I have a group of nine bulls being fed for slaughter. These cattle were born last spring and this is the first time I have finished spring-born bulls. Normally, I would have kept them as steers, stored them over winter and turned them out early in spring. They were usually sold live in May when there was strong demand for grazing cattle.
I thought I would try to see if there is a greater margin in finishing them as bulls, as other programme farmers have got on well with this system.
There are still six bullocks to go to grass and they will be sold live in the usual way later in spring. They were too light at housing to finish as bulls.
The bulls averaged 530kg liveweight on 28 February. They were on 3kg/day at housing and built up to 6kg/day by Christmas. Since then, they have moved on to ad-lib meal feeding. Bulls are consuming 12kg/day and some silage for roughage.
Taking meal cost at £180/t, they have a feed cost of £2.16/kg excluding silage. At an average daily gain of 1.7kg/day, they would be gaining 0.92kg/day of carcase based on 58% kill-out. At a beef price of £3.40/kg, the bulls have a margin over purchased feed of around £1.24/day before fixed costs.
The steers were last weighed on 2 February and averaged 346kg. There are also 15 yearling heifers and they averaged 328kg on the same date.
Both groups will go back to grass as soon as ground conditions improve. They have been on silage only since January in preparation for grazing.
All 15 heifers will be served this year. I only need 10 heifers for breeding, but hopefully I will be able to sell the surplus animals in-calf to increase their sale value. In preparation for grazing, I have slurry applied to drier grazing land and a half tonne of urea spread. But ground is just too wet to get any more fertiliser on or to let any stock out at the moment.
With more wet and cold weather this week, turnout of cattle may well be delayed until the end of the month, placing housing facilities under pressure.
As spring calving progresses and freshly calved cows remaining housed until weather improves, it is crucial that hygiene in housing is seen as a leading priority for suckler farmers.
Getting calves off to the best possible start in life is always worth the time and money invested.
For the programme farmers, this begins before calving with the vaccination of cows for scour to reduce the level of disease challenge to the newborn calf.
While time is limited, every effort is made to ensure calves get adequate colostrum within the first few hours of life.
Clean and dry
Keeping calving pens clean and dry is also important. Calving pens are a primary source of infection, as the newborn calf can come directly into contact with parasites and bacteria before receiving its first feed of colostrum.
While it may not be practical to clean pens out every day, in most cases the programme farmers clean out calving pens every two to three days, depending on the level of use. Once calved, cows are moved from calving pens within two days.
Calves should always have access to a dry bedded creep area away from the cow.
Wet bedding allows infection to build up. It also reduces the calf’s core body temperature, making it more susceptible to disease.
Pens should always be well-bedded with straw. As a rule of thumb, you should be able to kneel down on a straw bed without getting your knees damp. If they are damp, apply more straw.
Week in review
Ground conditions remain difficult after further rainfall over the past week.Attention is being placed on keeping calving pens and calf creeps clean to reduce the risk of disease.Spring calving is progressing well without any major issues.Freshly calved cows are on good-quality ad-lib silage plus 1kg to 2kg of concentrates to boost milk production.Oliver McKenna, Eskra,
Co Tyrone
Calving 70% of the
herd in five weeks
Calving started on 13 February and I have 27 cows calved out of 38. There are 10 homebred heifers calved in this group at 24 months of age.
So far, there have been no issues in terms of calving difficulty or sick calves, which is always a relief.
This is partly down to selecting easy-calving bulls and having cows in good condition prior to calving.
The cows are calving to On-dit, Keeldrum Clio, Keeldrum Capone and GPZ.
The heifers are calving down to a Red Angus bull called Lanigan Red Deep Canyon and the Salers bull Rio. All cows and heifers were bred to AI.
Calf sires
I have been increasing the amount of AI used in the herd in recent years. With only three cows served by my stock bull last year, I have since sold him, as it is hard to justify the cost of a bull to cover a handful of cows.
I have used Rio for a few years now. He has always delivered good calves that are lively at birth.
His male calves grow well and have killed out with carcase weights up on 400kg.
This is the first year I have used Deep Canyon and I am happy with his calves. The bull has great figures behind him also, being easy calving, and he has five stars for both terminal and maternal traits on the €uro-Star system.
One other reason for selecting the Red Angus was to bring some colour through to heifers that might help their sale price in the mart.
Diet
I would expect the 11 cows that have still to calve will do so within the next fortnight. They are being fed ad-lib first-cut silage and pre-calving minerals. Cows were housed in a condition score of 3.25 to 3.5. They were fed average-quality baled silage to reduce body condition to a score of 3.0 at calving.
Once calved, cows are offered ad-lib first-cut silage and 1kg of a 16% protein ration costing £180/t. They are still offered powdered minerals also. First-cut silage has a D-value of 67, but protein is high at 13.7% with dry matter at 23%.
Post-calving
Cows are calved in individual pens and are given two days with their newborn calf before moving to a larger loose pen. I converted a roofed silo into a loose house for cows and calves by straw-bedding the floor and using a ring feeder to offer silage. Cows can spend up to a week in this pen before moving on to slats, with their calf given access to a straw-bedded creep pen. It all depends on how calving progresses, as some days there is greater pressure for pen space than others.
Autumn calving
The autumn-calving herd was scanned in February, as breeding finished at Christmas. I had 21 cows in this group, but only served 19. Two were culled.
From the 19 scanned, there are 17 in-calf. There are also nine heifers from a group of 10 served and set to calve in the autumn. Anything not in calf will be fattened. The autumn calvers are on a silage-only diet and will be weaned before turnout.
Beef and store cattle
This year, I have a group of nine bulls being fed for slaughter. These cattle were born last spring and this is the first time I have finished spring-born bulls. Normally, I would have kept them as steers, stored them over winter and turned them out early in spring. They were usually sold live in May when there was strong demand for grazing cattle.
I thought I would try to see if there is a greater margin in finishing them as bulls, as other programme farmers have got on well with this system.
There are still six bullocks to go to grass and they will be sold live in the usual way later in spring. They were too light at housing to finish as bulls.
The bulls averaged 530kg liveweight on 28 February. They were on 3kg/day at housing and built up to 6kg/day by Christmas. Since then, they have moved on to ad-lib meal feeding. Bulls are consuming 12kg/day and some silage for roughage.
Taking meal cost at £180/t, they have a feed cost of £2.16/kg excluding silage. At an average daily gain of 1.7kg/day, they would be gaining 0.92kg/day of carcase based on 58% kill-out. At a beef price of £3.40/kg, the bulls have a margin over purchased feed of around £1.24/day before fixed costs.
The steers were last weighed on 2 February and averaged 346kg. There are also 15 yearling heifers and they averaged 328kg on the same date.
Both groups will go back to grass as soon as ground conditions improve. They have been on silage only since January in preparation for grazing.
All 15 heifers will be served this year. I only need 10 heifers for breeding, but hopefully I will be able to sell the surplus animals in-calf to increase their sale value. In preparation for grazing, I have slurry applied to drier grazing land and a half tonne of urea spread. But ground is just too wet to get any more fertiliser on or to let any stock out at the moment.
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: