Calves

I’m hearing mixed reports on calf health over the last few weeks. Wet weather is never easy on animals, particularly youngstock. Worm burdens are likely to be higher and earlier than normal this season, so keep that in mind when it comes to dosing regimes. Outbreaks of coccidiosis have been an issue on some farms and this can really take the life out of calves, leading to major setbacks.

Talk to your vet about preventative methods, because when it comes to cocci, prevention is better than cure. At this stage, February born heifer calves should be heading for 140/150kg, but the actual target weight all depends on what weight they are expected to be when mature.

In mid-June, they should be about 25% of their mature liveweight now. At that weight, they should be eating around 3.6kg to 4kg dry matter per day. Where on-target calves have access to good quality perennial ryegrass such as after-grass from early silage, then they don’t need to be fed meal for the summer. Lighter calves and calves on poorer quality grass will need additional meal over the summer at a rate of about 1kg per head per day.

Fly activity will be high in warm and muggy weather, so use topical treatments such as Stockholm tar or pour-on to keep them off maiden/in-calf heifers and dry cows.

Summer jobs

Now that we’re in the summer months, attention should turn to the summer jobs such as power washing. The most important sheds to be cleaned are the calving and calf houses. Best policy is to remove all manure, power wash, let dry, disinfect using a knapsack and then let dry out again before using the sheds for any other purpose. The same can be said for cubicles and slatted sheds.

Cleaning out these sheds is essential where there has been disease, such as TB. This is also a good time of the year to get repairs done on buildings or do upgrades to facilities. It always strikes me that many farms have a poor way of working with cows in spring.

What I mean here is that separating cows close to calving, moving them to and from calving pens or moving calves is all laboursome.

During the busy days in spring every minute saved doing a mundane task is a minute that can be put to better use. Improving facilities doesn’t have to involve huge expense, often it’s down to a more strategic placement of a gate, an extra door in a shed, a few extra metres of concrete, etc. Sometimes it’s better to get a fresh pair of eyes in to see the process and come up with ways to improve it. This could be a nice summer project for the discussion group.

Protected urea

The update on the Teagasc protected urea trials are carried this week on pages 32 and 33. While just a snapshot of the first few months, the results show that protected urea is performing better than CAN in total yield terms, but statistically is the same as CAN.

Make sure fertiliser spreaders are correctly calibrated and set up before spreading all fertilisers. It’s particularly important for protected urea-based compounds.