AIDAN BRENNAN DAIRY SPECIALIST

abrennan@farmersjournal.ie

Shane Fitzgerald is milking 217 cows on a 67ha milking parlour near the village of Ballynoe in east Cork. In total, there are 136ha being farmed, with outlying blocks being used to rear youngstock and provide silage.

The average EBI of the herd is €183 with this year’s calves having an EBI of €210. Last year, the herd produced 440kg of milk solids on 700kg of meal.

Over the last 10 years, Norwegian Red and Jersey semen was widely used across the herd, so about 60% of the cows are crossbred at this stage. As cows come close to calving, they are moved to a straw-bedded shed and grouped with other cows close to calving. After calving, the calf is snatched and placed in a pen with seven or eight other calves.

The Fitzgeralds have been testing for Johne’s disease in the milk for the past four years and are confident that there are no Johne’s-infected cows on the farm, so they are pooling colostrum. Up to four litres of colostrum is fed per calf within the first hour after calving. This is fed through a stomach tube. The calf’s next feed will be milk replacer.

While in the small groups of seven or eight, the calves are trained to drink from a teat. After about four days, they are moved to a different shed and join a bigger bunch of calves. This shed was previously a hay barn, but it was converted to a calf shed last year.

There are four big pens that can take up to 30 calves each and the calves are fed using an automatic feeder.

The calves are on a pre-determined feed plan with the computerised feeder and are weaned at 10 weeks of age. When on the full rate of feeding, they get six litres of milk or 700g of milk powder. The milk powder used is Volac Heiferlac.

At weaning, the calves weigh about 85kg to 90kg. Initially, calves are fed Calfage, which is a mix of haylage and meal at 18% protein. After a few weeks, the calves switch to meal and straw.

All the calves were weighed on 3 August. The average weight of the 99 calves was 165kg, which was above target for crossbred calves. They were gaining 0.76kg per day.

Twelve calves had been pulled out since the last weighing and they were getting preferential treatment – 2kg of meal and good quality grass. The large group of calves have been off meal since the end of May, but will go back on meal in September.

Herd health

The Fitzgerald calves have been dosed with an ivermectin-based pour-on and have been vaccinated.

The main herd is vaccinated against leptospirosis, salmonella and IBR.

Last year, some of the calves got a touch of rotavirus scour, so Shane is considering vaccinating the cows this winter with the rotavirus vaccine.