10 top tips for outwintering dairy heifers
Out-wintering replacement heifers can reduce costs by as much as 25%, however it must be managed correctly.
Having a contingency plan in place to mitigate severe weather and managing rations effectively are key. Here we list some top tips.
- Choose a free-draining, sandy soils to start with to minimise run-off
- Put straw out in the field to give the cows something dry to lie on. This will enable them to lie down and conserve heat
- Select fields with shelter
- Fence off damaged areas to avoid repeated compaction and back fence where possible
- Monitor growth rates regularly to ensure heifers are growing at desired targets
- If animals are loosing condition sometimes you need to accept that animals need to brought inside
- If feeding root crops such as fodder beet double fence to avoid them gorging and resulting in acidosis
- Measure dry matter content of crop to ensure you’re allocating enough feed to meet live weight gain targets
- Weigh animals every 2-4 weeks to make sure they’re putting on enough weight
- Forage such as big bale silage should make up one third of dry matter in the diet. As a rule of thumb animals requires 2% of their live weight a day. E.g. A 400kg animal needs to eat 8kg a day.
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