The weather over the past week has seen many farmers turning calves out to grass, particularly February- and early March-born calves now approaching 10 weeks of age.

For many dairy calf to beef farmers, the attention will turn to weaning calves over the coming weeks. There is more than one way of successfully weaning calves but keeping stress to a minimum is vital to prevent any health issues.

Reduce milk feeding levels seven to 10 days prior to weaning to stimulate higher concentrate intakes. At this point, calves should be eating at least 1kg but intakes of up to 2kg should be targeted. This will make the transition to a grass-based diet quicker and more successful as it will ensure the rumen is well developed.

Where the rumen is not developed, calf performance will struggle for two weeks after weaning. This can lead to the calf becoming more stressed, which leads to greater incidences of disease.

Some farmers will get calves out and continue to feed milk while for other farmers, calves will remain housed until weaned and will then be put out to pasture. Feeding milk replacer is one of the most expensive periods of a calf’s life and every effort should be made to reduce this. Moving to once-a-day feeding can also be a good way to transition the diet and encourage higher meal intakes in the week to 10 days before weaning.

Grass

It’s important to get calves out to grass as quickly as possible to maximise cheap liveweight gain off grass.

Systems will differ but when it comes to feeding meal one simple system is to feed 2kg/day for the first month after turnout and again for a month prior to housing.

In the intervening period, many farmers will continue to supplement with up to 1kg of concentrates.

If we take concentrates at €300/t, supplementing with 1kg during the main grazing season of 140 days it will add a cost of €42/head to summer grazing costs.

This is excluding feeding higher levels of meal (2kg) in the first 30 days after turnout and again at 30 days pre-housing. This 60-day period of higher meal feeding would add a cost of €36/head.

Poor grassland management during the grazing season can reduce liveweight gain by 0.2kg to 0.5kg/day and will result in calves not reaching their required targets by housing

Total meal feeding costs for the grazing period would be €78/head. Concentrate feeding has more advantages than just performance, particularly when it comes to identifying calves that may be sick.

To drive performance of calves, grassland management has to be a priority. If we want these calves to do 1kg/day they have to be going into the correct grass covers.

Poor grassland management during the grazing season can reduce liveweight gain by 0.2kg to 0.5kg/day and will result in calves not reaching their required targets by housing.

This leads to higher levels of supplementation being required, which will only put increased pressure on the viability of the syste

Such a drop in performance would see calves at 50kg+ lighter at housing than calves performing at 1kg/day.

This leads to higher levels of supplementation being required, which will only put increased pressure on the viability of the system.

Whether to feed meal during the summer period will be dictated to a large extent by the grazing infrastructure and grassland management on each farm.

If high levels of grass digestibility and utilisation can be achieved, there may be the opportunity to reduce meal feeding. However, it is imperative that performance is not compromised.

Cashflow must always be a key consideration of beginning a dairy calf to beef system, with a breakdown of grazing costs for the first season outlined in Table 1. If we go with a simple dairy calf to beef system with 20 calves, it could take nearly €2,700 to get these through the grazing period, excluding veterinary and dosing costs.

Grass demand from calves will be low for the first few months at grass but it is vital to keep moving calves to high-quality pasture as calves will be selective grazers. Young calves should not be forced to graze down swards to 4cm. It will be more manageable to get them to graze to 6cm, especially if they don’t enter swards of more than 8cm.

Ensuring quality regrowths can be difficult if you do not have a stronger group of stock, such as yearlings, to clean out paddocks

Ideally, calves should be moved at least every three days.

Ensuring quality regrowths can be difficult if you do not have a stronger group of stock, such as yearlings, to clean out paddocks. With silage being cut in the coming weeks, target after-growths for calves as it will be clean pasture that will have a low worm burden as well as being a top-quality feed.

At turnout, grass intake of the calf will be 2kg to 3kg DM per day. This will increase to 7kg to 8kg DM per day at housing. Having a flexible paddock system will help to allow for the different levels of grass to be allocated as the grazing season progresses.

Turnout checklist

  • Get calves out to grass as early as possible after weaning to lengthen days at grass and reduce disease pressure.
  • Calves should be healthy and alert, and should weigh 100kg and be eating 2kg of concentrates at turnout.
  • Graze in groups of 30 calves or less to ease management and identification of sick calves.
  • Monitor calves closely for seven to 10 days after turnout.
  • Turn calves out during a period of fine, dry weather where possible.
  • Maintain meal feeding to allow calves to adjust.
  • Keep calves in sheltered paddocks or allow them access to a shed.
  • Provide access to a source of roughage.
  • Don’t routinely vaccinate calves during weaning.
  • Calves should not be disbudded at weaning.