With spring calving under way, the programme farmers are taking every step possible to ensure good hygiene and management is being followed.

All research shows that getting calves off to the best possible start in life will boost weight gain and lifetime performance.

This starts before the calf is born. Cows have been vaccinated to reduce the risk of scour as a precaution.

For some of the programme farmers, this has been a routine procedure for a number of years, while for others it is a change to the herd health programme.

With stock numbers increasing and a long winter period, this should help reduce the risk of scour in compact calving herds.

Keeping calving pens clean is another step to improving calf health. Cows and calves are being moved to larger pens shortly after calving, once the calf is sucking freely on its own.

This helps to reduce the level of soiling in calving pens, which increases the build-up of pathogens that newborn calves are exposed to at birth.

Colostrum

Making sure that calves are getting plenty of colostrum within the first two hours of life is another step in getting the calf off to the best start in life. There is little point in vaccinating cows if calves are not getting adequate colostrum, as this is how antibodies are passed from cow to calf.

Ideally, cows and calves are going out to sheltered paddocks, but with weather conditions not favourable, many cows will remain housed for a short period in well-bedded sheds where calves have access to creep areas.

Week in review

  • Grass measuring is getting under way, with the farmers taking a reading for opening covers this week.
  • Spring calving continues on farm, with the majority of herds having no major issues.
  • Calving pens and calf creeps are being kept clean to improve calf health.
  • Farm focus: Paul Jamison, Dromore, Co Down

    Spring calving off to a rocky start

    Spring calving got under way at the beginning of March and we had a nightmare of a start. We have 70 cows and heifers calving down this spring, which is my target stocking level for the farm.

    To date, we have 21 cows calved. However, we only have 12 live calves on the ground. In the first week of March, 12 cows calved, but we only had five live calves and alarm bells were ringing.

    One of the calves could possibly have been saved with earlier intervention. However, the others were a mix of dead calves born and a couple of heifers aborting in the final weeks of gestation.

    Investigation

    Having consulted with our vet, calves were sent immediately to the lab for post-mortem. We also consulted with technical specialists from the pharmaceutical companies, as all cows were vaccinated for BVD, lepto and salmonella.

    At one stage, I had even thought of Schmallenberg as one calf was deformed, but this was immediately ruled out at the lab.

    Lab results also ruled out BVD, lepto, salmonella, E coli and neospora, which left me completely puzzled.

    Cows were blood-sampled in December and the herd was low in minerals, so we bolused the cows and have been feeding a good pre-calving mineral to cows since late January.

    Identifying the problem

    Having again consulted with my vet and feed merchant after ruling out several issues, we suspected that the problem may have been caused by mycotoxins in silage.

    Silage quality is good, dry matter is excellent and there are no visible signs of any mould or spoilage in the clamp. The feeding face is also clean and well-managed.

    However, cows were showing signs of lameness which supported our suspicicions. Forage samples have been taken and sent to the lab to identify which mycotoxins are present and results should be back this week.

    I sent another calf to the lab again last week for a post-mortem.

    The results indicated that the cause of death could be due to Bacillus Licheniformis, which is a form of bacteria that causes spoilage in silage, and can result in abortion in late pregnancy or the birth of smaller weak calves.

    Action

    Since last Monday, we started feeding Ultrasorb to cows, which counters any mycotoxins in silage.

    Cows are getting this product morning and night. I am mixing it with 6kg of meal and feeding this to 30 cows.

    The meal is purely to bulk out the Ultrasorb and encourage cows to come forward to feed.

    Since it was introduced, there have been no dead calves born.

    Recovering from the problems

    The loss of calves is a huge setback for the farm, as we have been trying to build numbers to 70 cows and increase output.

    Four of the cows that lost calves will be fattened and culled. I do not mind losing two of these animals, as one was an older cow and the other had very little milk. The other two animals are heifers that aborted and since they had not developed an udder before calving, it was not possible to foster a calf to them.

    The other five cows are younger animals that I do not want to lose from the herd, as they are bred from good cows and I want to maintain numbers.

    Therefore, I bought in five calves direct from a farm that I have previously purchased stock from and know to have a good health status.

    The calves purchased are four Friesian bulls, which will be fattened next year, and an Angus heifer which will hopefully make a cow in a couple of years.

    Silage

    We will probably have silage left over this year, but I am concerned about holding any of this forage through to next year.

    We have made silage on the same land area for the past 15 years and never had any problem like this before.

    Young stock have been fine on silage, although they have mostly been eating first-cut, while cows were getting more second-cut silage.

    There are 30 yearling heifers on farm. I plan to put 20 of these animals to the bull in summer to maintain breeding cow numbers.

    The remaining heifers will be fattened.

    I also have two groups of bulls being fattened, with each group consisting of 13 animals.

    The stronger bulls have been on 6kg/day of concentrate and will be increased to 8kg/day shortly. The lighter bulls are on 4.5kg of a growing ration daily.