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AWARD WINNER
The Wedds receive regular fortnightly visits
from Rose Jackson to check cow fertility.
She also takes a whole herd approach to
health and advises on disease control and
prevention. For instance, a whole herd
vaccination strategy for BVD has been in
place for a number of years.
For the Wedds' youngstock, Rose has
put together a vaccination and control
programme to protect against pneumonia.
Calves are dosed intra-nasally with a
pneumonia vaccine at 7 days of age
and at 12 and 15 weeks of age,
they are then given a multi-valent
pneumonia vaccine which includes a
BVD vaccine.
Rose explains: ‘Giving youngstock the best
possible start in life does pay dividends.
They are the future of the herd, and their
growth rates in the first six weeks will
impact on the age at first calving and
subsequent milk yields.
‘I am incredibly proud that Richard and
Val have won this award. They work hard
to manage their calves well and pay
attention to the detail. Their heifers always
look good and they have excellent
heifer fertility.
‘The FarmSkills workshops have given them
some extra knowledge and expertise to
further improve the good job that they
were already doing, and helped put them
ahead of the other competition entrants.’
Preventing disease
Table 1: Calf performance targets
Parameter
Target
Mortality from birth-weaning
<5%
Mortality from weaning to 24 months
<5%
Mortality at calving (including culling for infertility)
<5%
Growth rate from 0-6months
0.7kg/day
Growth rate from 6-24months
0.8kg/day
Target weight at 6 months
180kg
Target weight at 15 months
420kg
Target weight at 24 months
630kg
Brickell et al., 2009 Animal 3:8 1175-82
WINTER 2011 ISSUE
LIVESTOCK MATTERS
22
Rose Jackson (left) celebrates with Richard and Val Wedd, after they win the Volac Heifer Calf
Rearer of the Year award.
Many FarmSkills courses are supported by RDPE funding with grants from LANTRA LandSkills, which
help lower the overall cost of attending a course, which is of great benefit to many of our farmers.