Delayed killing: Delays in getting finishing cattle slaughtered are causing serious problems for farmers. While bulls can continue to be fed a high concentrate diet without running the risk of becoming overfat, this is not the case with steers and heifers. Holding cattle on a high concentrate diet will erode margins as the feed cost will far exceed the cost of 1kg of carcase gain. For instance, a 600kg heifer eating 7kg of meal (€260/t) and 15kg of silage (€30/t) will have a daily feed cost of €2.27. At a realistic gain of 0.8kg liveweight/day and a 55% killout, the animal is gaining 0.44kg of carcase every day worth €1.76. Once cattle are ready for slaughter and are booked in, you can ease back the meal levels. Increase silage in the diet to reduce the feeding costs and help lower the risk of heifers going overfat. Cutting meal levels back by around 25% will maintain body condition on the animal over a short period of two to three weeks.

Calving difficulties: I am still hearing reports of cows calving down in body condition scores (BCS) of 3+ and experiencing problems. The cows were held out on good grass covers late into the winter. Since housing, they have struggled to lose condition due to good quality silage. The situation has been made worse where farmers have heavily restricted feeding the cow in the final month before calving. Heavy restricting of feed during the final four to six weeks pre-calving will have little effect on BCS or preventing calving difficulties. It will pose metabolic problems to the cow especially after calving. The period of time when cow condition should be altered is mid, not late pregnancy. For a March calving cow, body condition should have been adjusted from November to January.

Calving intervention: Once the cow has started to calf, you should not intervene for at least two hours after the water bag has been presented. At this stage, you should only be checking for a calf that is not correctly positioned. If no progress is being made, you should try to assist the cow at this point. Trying to calve the cow too soon can increase difficulty as she may not have opened fully. With heifers, intervene around one hour after the water bag has been presented but do not rush the animal just because it is more convenient for yourself.

Grazing: Heavy rainfall is forecast for Thursday (today) but the indications are that there may be more settled weather next week. This may provide an opportunity to let some light cattle out to grass and ease feed requirement, housing space and workload. Priority stock, such as maiden heifers for breeding this year, should be let out to grass first. Letting cattle stand on laneways or handling pens for a few hours before going to grass will help them settle and reduce potential sward damage caused from direct turnout from the shed to the field. Keep cattle moving on quickly in paddocks to prevent them poaching grazed areas and slowing up re-growth.

Animal health: This week’s Focus provides advice on various health issues affecting cattle, such as castration, indoor management at calving and a spring vaccination checklist.