Three of the six focus farms have an autumn herd on-farm. Management of the autumn cow in the run up to calving poses many different obstacles to those of the spring-calving cow and therefore management practices must be altered accordingly.

Keeping condition off autumn cows can be a struggle as they will naturally gain condition on good-quality grass throughout the summer if allowed to do so. Many farms will leave autumn calves on the cow for this reason, right up to six or eight weeks pre-calving.

Another reason for this is to reduce the incidences of summer mastitis.

Summer mastitis

However, leaving calves on cows does not mean summer mastitis cannot strike. Cows are at greatest risk of infection immediately after the calf suckles the cow as it can take over 30 minutes for the teat end to fully close.

Summer mastitis remains a risk of farms right through to September. In the last couple of weeks with the warm wetter conditions, fly activity has increased and with it has brought an increased risk of mastitis. In warmer weather, cows will seek shade of hedgerows and trees leading to an increased risk of teat scratches which allows infection to get in. Also as calves get stronger, they will suckle the cow less often meaning longer intervals between sucking allowing infection the chance to creep in.

Early signs will include stiffness when walking along with the affected quarter being hard, swollen and hot to the touch. In cases where it is not detected early enough a build-up of toxins in the infected gland can gain entry to the cow’s bloodstream leading to septicaemia. These cows will be very sick, dull, have swollen joints and a high temperature.

The damage caused is usually irreversible and the focus should be on prevention rather than cure. Fly control in mid-summer is critically important. While it may be more difficult to treat animals mid-season at grass, it is well worth doing.

Body condition

While body condition on autumn-calving cows will differ greatly depending on breed this year, grass availability will have had the biggest impact.

This time last year the majority of autumn-calving cows were in really good condition due to decent grass growth throughout the first half of the grazing season. This year it is much more variable across the country, depending on how bad the drought conditions were through June and July.

To manage condition last year on autumn calvers the Duguids at Mains of Cranna, Aberchirder put the fittest batch of cows onto winter barley stubbles for a few weeks to reduce condition. Likewise in Tomintoul, at Mains of Auchriachan, the Duffus family weaned the autumn-calving cows and put them onto hill ground in the run up to calving.

This year cow condition is not such a problem on either of the farms as grass supply was much tighter right throughout the season. To take pressure off the cows and to ensure the calves continued to thrive, the Duguids allowed the calves to forward-creep graze ahead of the cows.

This was achieved using a simple creep gate between two fields. To encourage them through the gate they placed a creep feeder in the creep field. This meant calves spent longer periods of the day away from the cows, grazing top-quality grass and receiving a small amount of concentrates. This reduced the demand on the cows and allowed them to maintain sufficient condition in what was a difficult year.

Over-conditioned cows result in greater calving difficulties, however, the same can be said for cows that are too thin and do not have enough energy reserves to first of all calve down and produce enough milk for their calf and secondly resume cyclic activity to go back in calf again for next year.

While it depends on each farms own situation and timing of autumn calving, in a year like we are experiencing just now, having autumn calves weaned at the time of turnout could have reduced the feed demand on farm greatly throughout the grazing season.

If autumn calving starts in mid-September and runs for nine weeks that gives a mean calving date of somewhere around the second week of October. By mid-April calves are on average over six months old and will be on their mother for close to 190 days. At this stage the proportion of the calf’s diet that actually comes from milk could be as low as 20%. Weaning at this stage would provide greater flexibility for the farmer throughout the grazing season.

If ground conditions are poor, weaned calves can still go to grass without damaging the sward to the same extent as they would if the cows were with them. Dry cows can remain indoors on a relatively cheap maintenance diet until ground conditions improve. The demand for grass from a dry cow is much lower than that of one in milk. Therefore, in times of tight grass supply, preference can be given to the young growing animal while dry cows can be tightened up onto poorer-quality pasture.

Also, cows are weaned and dried off prior to summer mastitis becoming a problem, meaning once fly control is correct, there should be no major issues with outbreaks of summer mastitis in the autumn herd.

Often farmers think by weaning earlier the cow is standing on the farm doing nothing for too long. In reality, she has her job done, reared a calf for close to 200 days and is now back in calf again for the following year. Feed costs account for over 75% of variable costs on beef farms. Of which, nearly two thirds of this can be attributed to the cow. Reducing the number of days in lactation will reduce the overall feed demand of the cow – saving you money in feed.