Dariylink: keeping heifers on track in Co Derry

The youngest calves that will be kept for replacement heifers have now been weaned on most autumn-calving programme farms.

Weaning on Dairylink Ireland farms is based on concentrate intake and not age. The target is to have calves consuming 1kg to 1.5kg/head/day before taking them off milk.

Calf starter concentrates are introduced on programme farms shortly after birth for rumen development.

Although intakes are initially low, they build in the first few weeks.

Programme adviser Conail Keown says that a calf’s appetite is driven by smell, so concentrates need to be fresh every day.

“A small handful is all that is required until calves start to nibble at it,” he said.

Consumption should also be monitored when transitioning from weaning pellets to heifer nuts

The advice to programme farmers is to offer calves a balanced concentrate, as they need protein to grow but offering too much energy will make them overfat.

“Diets for the weaned calf need to be 18% crude protein, with metabolisable energy of 11.5MJ/kg DM. The diet can drop in energy and protein from six to seven months old, which will coincide with turnout on the project farms,” Conail said.

If a blend is offered to calves, it is critical that it is digestible and balanced correctly to ensure no stomach upsets or reduction in intake.

Consumption should also be monitored when transitioning from weaning pellets to heifer nuts.

Investing in a set of weigh scales allows growth rates to be monitored and liveweights to be compared against the target

The main target with heifer rearing on programme farms is to achieve a daily liveweight gain of 0.8kg from weaning to breeding.

This should allow calves to hit 60% of their mature liveweight by 14 to 15 months of age.

Investing in a set of weigh scales allows growth rates to be monitored and liveweights to be compared against the target.

“It will give an early warning if you get the feed or feed regime slightly wrong,” Conail said.

Weekly round-up

The last cow calved down on John Oliver’s farm near Limavady a week ago and all replacement heifer calves are now weaned off milk.

Tail-end cows were in-calf to the Angus stock bull and the last three beef-bred calves will be sold shortly.

There are 28 replacement heifer calves on the ground. The main group is made up of 24 calves that are on first-cut silage and concentrates at 3.5kg/head/day.

These calves have access to straw bedding, as well as a slatted pen where the feed rail is positioned.

There are four younger calves that were recently weaned and are still on straw bedding. These calves are being offered ad-lib meal and straw in racks at present.

Replacement heifer calves were born between 27 August and 6 December, so they should form a uniform batch and hit liveweight targets for breeding at the end of the year.

A set of electronic weigh scales has been ordered and will be used for monitoring heifers throughout the rearing process.

Last week, a weigh band was used to get an estimate of current liveweights in a sample of heifers.

The oldest calves were over 150kg, which is on target for five-month-old calves.

The group is fairly even, although younger calves are naturally lighter at around 120kg.

These will be separated and kept on a higher level of concentrate feeding when all calves have been weighed on the new scales.

Heifer calves have been vaccinated for pneumonia and IBR on the Oliver farm and they will also be vaccinated for clostridial diseases shortly.

Breeding

John is planning to run breeding for 15 weeks this year which means the stock bull will be in with the cows for three more weeks.

The first scanning showed 39 out of the 43 cows were in-calf.

The vet also scanned 20 heifers, with 17 of these in-calf. Another batch of 17 heifers on an outfarm have not been scanned yet.

In previous years, John has been active in using hormone treatments, such as PRIDs and prostaglandin, to establish a tighter calving profile by getting some cows in-calf quicker.

Significant progress has been made in creating a more compact calving block on the Oliver farm and the only hormone treatment used this year was a shot of prostaglandin to a few cows that were slow to cycle.

Ground conditions

Snow lay on John’s farm from last Wednesday morning to Sunday evening. Ground conditions have suffered a setback as a result and plans to get calves and some slurry out have been delayed.

If weather holds up over the next few weeks, John will get calves out to grass and continue feeding concentrates in troughs at their current levels.

Calves will be weighed periodically and concentrate feeding will eventually stop for heifers that are on target.

Slurry stores are filling up on the Oliver farm, so the plan is to get some slurry spread on the driest fields in the next week or two.

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