Weather: The 2019 honeymoon period is over and we are back to more normal spring weather. After very heavy rain over the past week, grazing will be stop-start for the next few days.
Ground conditions are variable, but free-draining soils are holding up well and farmers are able to keep grass into cows by practising on-off grazing.
Farmers on heavier land have to house cows for periods and feed silage. The process around deciding whether cows can go out grazing is thus:
Hold cows in the yard after milking.Walk what you think will be the driest and most suitable paddocks.Stick your heel into the ground. If it is firm, cows can go out. If you’re leaving a mark, then you either need to find a drier field or they have to stay in.Give them enough grass for 12 hours but bring them in after three hours.Use spur roads and back fences to reduce damage.The first step is the most important in the process. If cows go back to the shed after milking, you’ve effectively made your mind up that they are not going out before you’ve ever looked at the fields. There is more work when grazing during wet weather, but the benefits of getting cows out to grass, if even for a few hours, reduces overall workload, saves silage, makes more money and puts you in better form.
Scour: Damp, wet and muggy conditions are not good for calf health, particularly where ventilation is sub-standard, as it is in nearly all calf sheds. With increased numbers of calves on farms, and a mix of ages, the risk to calf health is high.
Most calves that get scour die from dehydration rather than the bug itself. So scouring calves need extra feeds, not less. In bad cases, they will need to be fed up to four times per day.
Mix milk with electrolytes, or give separate feeds of electrolytes in between the normal feeds of milk. Don’t stop feeding milk because if you do you will reduce the calf’s energy intake. Homemade electrolytes can be made using the recipe below:
2 tbsp glucose.1 dessert spoon of baking soda.1 heaped teaspoon of common salt2 litres of water.It’s important not to use ordinary sugar instead of glucose, as ordinary sugar is a carbohydrate that cannot be metabolised by calves.
Mastitis: With milking cows going into and out of cubicles, the risk of mastitis has increased. Now is the time to book in the first milk recording. I know not all cows are calved yet but an early first recording is essential to find high SCC cows and treat them early. Where there is an SCC problem, use the paddle test or some other method of identifying high SCC quarters in freshly calved cows. Give them more time, or treat them with antibiotics before letting their milk into the tank.
Weather: The 2019 honeymoon period is over and we are back to more normal spring weather. After very heavy rain over the past week, grazing will be stop-start for the next few days.
Ground conditions are variable, but free-draining soils are holding up well and farmers are able to keep grass into cows by practising on-off grazing.
Farmers on heavier land have to house cows for periods and feed silage. The process around deciding whether cows can go out grazing is thus:
Hold cows in the yard after milking.Walk what you think will be the driest and most suitable paddocks.Stick your heel into the ground. If it is firm, cows can go out. If you’re leaving a mark, then you either need to find a drier field or they have to stay in.Give them enough grass for 12 hours but bring them in after three hours.Use spur roads and back fences to reduce damage.The first step is the most important in the process. If cows go back to the shed after milking, you’ve effectively made your mind up that they are not going out before you’ve ever looked at the fields. There is more work when grazing during wet weather, but the benefits of getting cows out to grass, if even for a few hours, reduces overall workload, saves silage, makes more money and puts you in better form.
Scour: Damp, wet and muggy conditions are not good for calf health, particularly where ventilation is sub-standard, as it is in nearly all calf sheds. With increased numbers of calves on farms, and a mix of ages, the risk to calf health is high.
Most calves that get scour die from dehydration rather than the bug itself. So scouring calves need extra feeds, not less. In bad cases, they will need to be fed up to four times per day.
Mix milk with electrolytes, or give separate feeds of electrolytes in between the normal feeds of milk. Don’t stop feeding milk because if you do you will reduce the calf’s energy intake. Homemade electrolytes can be made using the recipe below:
2 tbsp glucose.1 dessert spoon of baking soda.1 heaped teaspoon of common salt2 litres of water.It’s important not to use ordinary sugar instead of glucose, as ordinary sugar is a carbohydrate that cannot be metabolised by calves.
Mastitis: With milking cows going into and out of cubicles, the risk of mastitis has increased. Now is the time to book in the first milk recording. I know not all cows are calved yet but an early first recording is essential to find high SCC cows and treat them early. Where there is an SCC problem, use the paddle test or some other method of identifying high SCC quarters in freshly calved cows. Give them more time, or treat them with antibiotics before letting their milk into the tank.
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