Farmer Writes: always learning on the farm

I split the calves at home into bull and heifer groups last week, and a small number got a worm dose too. That was confined to those with dirty backsides and the rest were left alone. A handful with dung caked around the tail got treated for coccidia. An outbreak of coccidiosis in calves a few years ago led to blanket treatments for a few springs but, as it looks to be under control more, I’m winding back a bit from that now.

There’s a risk involved if you get it wrong so you need to be tuned in, but I don’t miss having to round them up and put them through the crush and treat them all.

In the last 10 years I was jumping in with the faecal egg count (FEC) almost monthly from June onwards, but as they have increased a lot in price in the last few years, I’ve started to use them more strategically. If the thrive and weight gain of an animal looks to be on track, they’re left alone. However, if one or two animals start to go backwards or appear different to the rest of the herd, then either a single or pooled sample is taken away to get to the bottom of the issue.

I think it was autumn 2017 when my vet suggested selective dosing, so there’s been time to become accustomed to what to look out for.

Any cattle purchased in for finishing are treated.

This spring a decision was made to get calves out of the shed as soon as possible, with a good share being left out less than 24 hours after being born. I’ll admit the weather helped, but it also gave me the opportunity to get a little braver and spring pneumonia vaccines were skipped for the first in nearly a decade.

All calves on the out-farm look to be clean behind and are thriving well, so they will be left alone. The only calves that got a blanket treatment were the bucket-reared calves.

Yes, you read that correctly, dairy-beef calves. It’s only a small bunch, but when a pair of cows that had twins each decided to reject a calf each, I figured if I was going to be feeding two calves twice a day I might as well feed a few more. It’s been a good interest for the next generation too and most evenings in spring I had my assistant in tow.

I was still in national school the last time there was a bunch of bucket-fed dairy-cross calves around here but, like many others I’m learning a few new skills this year.

I’ll admit it’s an idea I’ve been toying with for a number of years, but the logistics of it were tricky to work out. There was no point getting some at the same time as peak calving, and my buildings aren’t suited to a bunch of them over the winter so I held off until the few cows left to calf were at single figures.

Facilities are comfortable for a certain number of cows and going beyond that is just looking for trouble. I’ve finished a few extra bulls in recent years and that’s a handy system, but there is scope for carrying a few extra bodies at grass and this is a handy way to do it. I’ll run it as a three-year experiment and take two groups of calves through to finish before making a longer-term commitment.