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The grazing season is drawing to a close, with the winter housing period fast approaching. Hopefully, farmers will manage to keep cattle at grass for another month before housing is required.
Before then, there are a number of management tasks that should be completed. Some of these apply directly to cattle management, but other tasks concern those jobs which have been postponed for a rainy day.
Outlined are five tasks to carry out over the coming weeks.
1 Scan spring-calving cows
Late September and early October is a good time to scan spring-calving cows. Cows should be settled in-calf by now and can be accurately scanned from 35 to 40 days post-service.
Cows which are not in-calf should be marked for culling. If the cow is a late-calving animal with a smaller calf, separate these animals from the herd for additional feeding and sell as an outfit once they are fleshed.
If calves are older, over 250kg liveweight and eating concentrates, wean all empty cows now. If they are in good flesh, they should be offloaded as early as possible.
If cows are thin, isolate after weaning and feed for a short period to improve body condition and sale value.
2 Animal health
Is herd health up to date? If not, now is the time to take action. If weaning and housing is just a few weeks away, then it crucial calves are wormed now to clear lungworm burdens.
Do not worm calves and house, or wean, on the same day. This is a recipe for disaster as the added stress means animals are certain to take pneumonia.
Calves should be wormed at least two to three weeks ahead of housing and weaning. While this means additional handling of cattle, it is a no-brainer compared with the health risks of worming at housing time.
Where calves receive a pneumonia vaccine requiring two shots, make sure the booster shot is administered before housing.
3 Separate bull and heifer calves
With the breeding season for spring-calving cows over, use the opportunity when scanning cows or dosing animals to separate bull calves and heifer calves.
Although the risk will be small, this prevents stronger bull calves from serving heifers. Once separated, it is easier to target higher levels of creep feed to bull calves to boost performance.
4 Housing repairs
Make sure all repairs to cattle housing are completed before animals have to come inside for the winter.
Replace lights, fix water troughs, dividing gates and feed barriers as required. Alter space boarding and tin to improve air flow to cut down on respiratory problems.
5 Gradual weaning
Gradual weaning of calves is a good way to cut down stress on animals and reduces health problems.
To break the cow and calf bond, can electric fencing be set up to allow calves to creep ahead of cows?
Feeding meals in calf troughs, which can be easily moved from paddock to paddock, can encourage calves to creep ahead of cows.
Alternatively, can creep feeders be set up on central laneways and creep gates set up to allow access?
Another method for gradual weaning is to slip three or four cows away from cows every week. Their calves remain in the field with other cows and calves. As the calf remains in a familiar environment on the same diet, this reduces stress levels.
The cows removed can be housed to dry off and either remain housed, or moved to rough grazing out of sight of calves.
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