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WORKING
TOGETHER
FOR A HEALTHIER FUTURE...
11
LIVESTOCK MATTERS
CAL F HEALTH
Bulling weights
At Strickley Farm, it’s essential that cows
calve down at 23-25 months of age so they
stay within the two-month calving block. And
ideally, heifers need to calve down at the
start of the block, not the end.
James says: ‘Heifers are our future. If we get
it wrong, then it takes a lot of catching up.
So the extra care in early life makes the
difference all the way through.‘
As part of their new focus on heifer rearing,
the Robinsons purchased a weigh cell so that
animals could be bred from as soon as they
were suitable. ‘We need to base decisions
on their weight, and not by their age, or by
eye,‘ explains James. ‘Now, when they come
inside in the autumn we put all of them over
the weigh cell. And, knowing their actual
weights, we have been able to calve a few
down at 22 months of age.‘
Cost-effective jackets
One of the recommendations made by
Kirsty was to put jackets on calves. Thanks to
weigh-banding, the benefits could be seen
clearly; calves wearing jackets grew an extra
100-150g/day over the first eight weeks.
James adds: ‘We reckon one jacket can be
used, washed, and re-used for at least 10
calves. It works out at about £2/calf which
is nothing compared to the extra growth of
5kg! It also reduces the cost of feeding
them, as they are not eating to keep warm.
We do get some cold nights in August, so
we will put them on calves when the
temperature cools.‘
Maintaining good growth rates
Kirsty explains: ‘A calf’s rumen is relatively
small so it can’t cope with lots of long fibre.
As a rule of thumb, for optimal digestion, the
forage component in rations should be
chopped so it is no longer than the muzzle
width of the animal eating it. This improves
utilisation and increases dry matter intakes.‘
At Strickley Farm, after weaning, housed
calves used to be fed big bale silage or
clamp silage. But now they receive a
TMR ration of chopped straw, haylage
and 2kg/head/day of a 16% protein
concentrate.
‘A lot of farms don't have the housing to
enable a feeder wagon to put a TMR out
for calves, but the Robinsons do. This
means heifers eat more than they would
have done on big bale silage, and also
have a smoother transition onto this ration
at weaning,‘ adds Kirsty.
Now that they had a means of weighing
older heifers, the Robinsons were using it
every time cattle were handled – for
worming, vaccination, etc – and recording
ages and weights. James says: ‘As the
saying goes, you have to measure to
manage, otherwise you’re just guessing.‘
The Robinsons had a bit of a surprise last
summer. Over the winter, the calves at
Strickley Farm had been achieving their
target growth rates (850g-1kg/day).
After weaning they had been turned out
onto grass, and given some concentrate
every day.
When the heifers came back in to be
wormed, and were weighed, the Robinsons
were shocked to find that weight gains had
fallen to around only 400g/day.
‘This was a massive drop in growth,‘ says
James. ‘And we wouldn’t have seen it
without the weigh cell. We had been giving
them a token amount of concentrate –
around 0.5kg/head/day. But now they
are getting 2kg - four times the amount.‘
Kirsty adds: ‘Weigh bands are only
accurate for a liveweight of up to 100kg.
After that, unless you can weigh the animals,
how can you measure their growth
?
‘As the Robinsons’ experience shows, you
can’t expect heifers to eat enough at grass
to keep growth on-track. So supplementary
feeding is essential to maintain growth rates
of 850g-1kg/day.‘
James and Kirsty weigh-banding
New TMR ration at Strickley Farm
10 minutes extra
The Robinsons receive fortnightly fertility
checks during the breeding season. ‘On
the same visit, if we’ve got calves around,
then Kirsty will take bloods and weigh
band them. It only adds about 10
minutes to the visit,‘ says James.
Kirsty adds: ‘Ideally, from a hygiene
perspective, I ought to see the calves
first, and then look at the cows to be
PD-ed. But as farmers always want to get
their cows back to the feed trough, I tend
to examine them first. But then I’ll wash
down and wash my wellies before getting
into the calf pens. This is because I could
be taking bacteria like E.coli Salmonella,
which is present in all adult dung, into
the environment of the more vulnerable
young animals.‘
The benchmarking has proved very
interesting for James, he adds: ‘We can
see we are doing quite well. But I think
we can still do even better.‘