Farmer Focus: Fencing change should help calving next time
© Tim Scrivener As the busy calving, followed by 12 weeks of breeding, draws to a close by early February, it’s often a good chance to review how the hectic season has progressed while it’s fresh in our minds.
We often find January and February the easiest months from a management perspective, with the winter routine in full flow, most cows hopefully in calf, and the lactation curve ideally on track to budget (if everything has gone to plan).
Things get a little more complicated in February or in early March, when the on/off grazing starts, often in wet conditions.
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Calving seemed to go smoothly. I think this has been down to a robust transition ration to balance energy and protein intakes while calving outside.
Notably, this is something we have overlooked in the past as we try to cut costs.
As expected, there has been a substantial production uplift and only a negligible number of metabolic disease cases.
Time spent dealing with such transition issues is often unpredictable and frustrating.
As a team, we’ve worked closely with the vet to recognise and follow some rigid protocols to maximise animal health, which everyone has bought into.
From 680 calvings this autumn, we’ve had a 1% incidence of milk fever.
Although calves have performed and hit growth targets, we struggled with an onset of E coli scours up to five days of age.
But they soon bounced back with electrolyte drenches three times a day.
This was likely down to wet conditions and overstocking the calving paddock, so we will aim to move and back fence more regularly to limit disease spread on soiled pasture.
Lactation-wise, we’ve peaked at 2.5kg milk solids a head a day, up slightly on last year, and it has paid to feed at a slightly harder rate with a favourable milk price.
Udder health has been good with cell counts under 100,00 cells/ml, but we’ve been hit by a few bad mastitis cases which take a bit of recovery and tender loving care.
We’re now in week nine of breeding, and have pregnancy checked for three weeks to find 55% in calf, which is pleasing.
If next week’s PD session looks good, we will consider shortening breeding by one week to 11 weeks, or selling off any surplus stock, subject to TB testing.