Large number of heifer calves born

Calving is well underway on the Irish Farmers Journal beef and sheep demonstration farm in Tullamore, Co Offaly. There are 75 cows to calve in spring 2025. Calving started on 28 January with the majority calved so far being first calvers with heifers bred before the main herd in 2024.

To date, 28 cows have calved with 29 live calves on the ground. A set of twins which wasn’t expected brought up the calf numbers last week.

The 28 calvings are made up of 18 first calvers and 10 cows. Five of the heifers required assistance, two with rope assistance and two with jack assistance and one caesarean section. The section came about where a calf was upside down in the heifer. The heifer hadn’t opened because of the mal presentation and it was decided to proceed with a section to save the calf. Both heifer and calf are doing well.

Another heifer put out her calf bed after a jack pull but is also doing well after veterinary intervention. Sexed semen use has brought about a big hit of heifer calves with 24 heifer calves currently on the ground in Tullamore.

Cows are being moved out to a straw bedded shed within a week or so of calving to allow hides and udders clean up ahead of calving. Most cows calve in a large loose pen and are moved across to calving pens as needed.

A big emphasis is placed on getting adequate colostrum into calves within two hours of birth. If a cow is handled at all at calving time, the calf is fed colostrum via a stomach tube.

The first port of call is to milk colostrum from the calf’s mother. If this isn’t practical, the farm also keeps a store of frozen colostrum for use where a cow can’t be milked for one reason or another.

This colostrum comes from a neighbouring dairy farm where our own farm vet Donal Lynch is also the vet for the dairy farm. We know the health history and also the Johnes disease risk level so he feels it’s ok to use this colostrum.

Calving pre-management

All cows have been on pre-calving mineral for 6-8 weeks and have been penned according to calving date and body condition score.

“We like to pen the heifers together. They are still growing animals so it’s important that they don’t get bullied at a feed barrier and have full access to silage in the run up to calving.”

One incidence of milk fever two weeks ago meant things were changed around a little in terms of feeding minerals.

“We had a case of milk fever in an older first cross Limousin cow where she went down after calving.

“We got the vet and everything was fine. She’ll be on the cull list for this year. We have upped the level of pre-calving minerals from 120 grams/head/day to 170 grams/head/day. This means there is a higher level of magnesium being fed in the diet.

“We got the silage analysed for minerals and all was ok but it was high in potassium and this can impact the absorption of magnesium in cows.

“We also left a high magnesium lick bucket at the feed barrier so cows have access to it and should help them draw down their own calcium.”

Milk fever isn’t usually an issue in suckler cows but sub clinical issues can result in slower calvings which can sometimes lead to calf losses. Cows are being fed in the evening time to try and avoid night time calvings.

Cows are being fed .5kg of meal 7-10 days pre-calving just to settle them and handle at barrier. Cows are also getting 1kg/head/day of mal after calving with first calved heifers getting 1.5kg/meal/head/day along with 73 DMD silage.

2024 calving stats

Last year’s calving stats for the Tullamore farm are generally where we would like them to be. Calves per cow per year came in at .93 calf/cow/year just behind the target of .95 calf/cow/year.

Calving interval was 376 days, 21 days behind the national average of 397 days. Two calves were lost at birth with one more lost before 28 days of age which brought mortality to 3.8%.

Tullamore farm calving essentials