Weather

For the first time in months, the forecast (page 61) shows no sign of rain anywhere in the country. This dry spell is worth money, but only if you make the most of it. The most money will be made by getting grass down milking cows’ throats. Fat and protein percentage will increase and so will the milk cheque. When cows are on grass, less meal can be fed. Grass samples taken in Galway last week showed spring grass is between 20% and 25% crude protein and between 83% and 84% DMD. Basically, it’s rocket fuel for livestock. That said, heavy land is still wet and it will be some time before it dries out enough to let cows out. But most farms have some dry fields or sections of fields that could be grazed. Getting some grass into the diet is better than getting no grass in.

When spreading slurry, be careful not to cover all the dry fields with it and end up not having anywhere to go with cows when they can go out.

Mastitis

I was on a farm this week where four of the last eight calved cows got mastitis. The quarters were swollen and the cows were sick with a high temperature. The vet ruled out E coli mastitis but pointed the finger at the calving shed. At this stage, half of the herd had passed through the shed.

While the bed was reasonably clean with fresh straw used when needed, the cumulative effect of cows urinating, dunging, passing fluids while calving and passing afterbirths on the bed obviously led to a toxic environment underneath. The solution, according to the vet, was to clean out the shed, give it a wash down and disinfect it before letting cows back in. This hadn’t been done up to now as the farmer was too busy, but now he is busier treating sick cows and is also stressed out over the mastitis. Half of the cows are calved in most herds so now is a good time to give the calving shed a good clean. Maybe plan to do it this weekend when more help might be available.

Calves

Demand for bull calves seems strong with a big interest among exporters. Does hanging on to bull calves for longer pay? Depending on how many cows have calved in the previous four days, milk from colostrum cows will probably only provide between one-quarter and half of your calf feeding requirements from now on. So milk that could be sold, or milk replacer, will have to feed the rest of the calves.

Presuming milk constituents are at base level, it will cost around €1.75/day to feed a calf with 5l of whole milk. This is over €12/week in milk, before meal, shed space, labour and risk of disease is taken into account. It will cost substantially more than that for herds with higher solids as they get a higher milk price. Will you get this back in the mart? Looking at the calf sales table on page 65, keeping Friesian bull calves from two to three weeks of age made the seller €12/head more. Keeping them from two to four weeks of age made them only €17/more. Therefore, if you can get them away at two weeks, do.