Frank and Des Beirne

Co Longford

We are busy with winter feeding and dosing here in Newtownforbes. The very mild conditions have led to a few small problems for calves that are in the sheds. We rectified this by removing some tin at the back of one shed to improve air flow.

Along with our vet, who recently completed a course in ventilation, we discovered that air flow was not good in the part of the shed where the autumn calves are housed. We lit some straw in a bucket and watched the smoke rise and billow back down.

It is definitely worth taking a look at inlets and outlets in cattle sheds for air flow. We have kept a close eye on the calves during this time and they have come through fine. We weighed our weanlings two weeks ago and we are very happy with their performance.

Bulls are gaining 0.88kg/day and heifers are gaining 0.85kg/day. They are currently being fed 1.5kg of barley and 0.6kg of soya, daily. This works out as a total of 16% for dietary protein.

I think farmers forget that when silage is not high in protein, and you only feed a 14% ration, there is insufficient protein in the diet for the weanlings to grow. These weanlings will stop getting ration from three weeks prior to turnout and will be moved onto ad-lib silage.

All cattle that are housed have been treated for lice and worms. Based on cattle faecal sample results, we have held off with some of the fluke dosing. We will re-test the negative results to make sure we do not need to dose. Dry cows are being fed 58DMD silage ad-lib and the cows that are due to calve in January are on 0.5kg of soya and are being fed hay up to calving.

Autumn cows with calves are being fed 26kg of silage, 1kg of barley, 0.3kg of soya, 0.25kg of straw and minerals. Young autumn calves are on 1kg of an 18% protein ration.