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With a lot of weaning taking place on farms across the country, it’s important to remember this is a very stressful time on calves.
This stress can lower the calves’ immunity and bring on disease. Avoiding other stressors such as dosing and castrating around this time will be easier on the calf.
Having lungs clear by dosing in advance and having calves vaccinated will help in reducing illness around this time.
Some farms pull out five to 10 cows at a time and calves still have cows in the field and sometimes don’t notice their own mothers have gone.
On Tullamore Farm, a Quiet Wean Paddle has been inserted into the calves’ noses to stop them sucking.
This allows the calf stay with its mother during the weaning process.
Once weaned, cows should be dried off by either housing or shut off on dry bare paddocks. Once calves have been weaned, the energy content of the diet needs to be increased as their intake of low-DM grass won’t be enough to meet energy demand.
Feeding ration will allow a smooth transition on to their new diet and will go some way to avoiding a big check in growth rate.
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