Breeding

Late calves are hard to make money out of no matter what your system. In a weanling system selling calves in October, young light calves are a big drag. While they may make a good price per kg, their light weight pulls back the gross output from that cow in a year.

Keeping a 700kg cow to suck a calf for five to six months doesn’t make a lot of sense when she could be rearing that calf for seven to eight months. At €2.50/kg and at an average weight gain of 1.1kg/day, a calf born on 1 April v 1 May will be worth €82 more at weanling sales in the autumn.

Based on a 286-day gestation, cows bred this week will be calving towards the end of March 2021. Think about this. Is there an opportunity to pull back your calving spread by a week or two each year until you get back to where you want to be in terms of earlier calving?

It has been an excellent couple of months in terms of heat activity and conception rates seem to be good in earlier-calving herds around the country. By taking out the bull, you may only lose a couple of cows not bred and these can be replaced with earlier-calving in-calf heifers.

Fly activity

Watch out for cases of summer mastitis over the coming weeks. If the problem is detected early and if treatment is given in time it can be treated quite successfully, but it can be easily missed as these stock groups often do not get the same attention as spring cows or growing cattle.

Summer mastitis is less common in spring-calving cows as the calf is sucking the cow regularly but can occur in late-calving cows where calves are unable to suck all four quarters and mastitis develops.

Particularly high-risk are areas with trees, areas close to water or areas that have plenty of shelter from hedges, as this will attract flies.

Prevention is better than cure. Treating cows with a pour-on insecticide can help prevent the problem, but the cover period varies with different products. As the peak risk period is normally in late July and August, cows may need a second treatment. Applying tar can work, but that’s less practical as it needs to be reapplied every three to four days. I have also spoken to farmers who have been using garlic licks and they seem to be happy with them.

Cows with summer mastitis will have a swollen udder and flies around the teat. The swollen udder causes discomfort to the animal, which results in stiffness and lameness when walking. Cows generally develop a temperature, become isolated and dull in appearance. When drawing a quarter, the characteristic thick, clotted secretion is present. If an antibiotic tube is being used to treat an infected quarter, make sure you clean the teat and use a glove. Good hygiene and preventing further infection is very important.

Silage

This week, Kieran Mailey outlines what the options are for farmers short of first-cut silage. The most important thing you can do is sit down and work out what you need for next winter and gauge it against what you have and what’s due to be cut.