Colostrum: The importance of correctly managing colostrum or beastings was highlighted at the Teagasc/AHI calf care event on Tuesday evening.

The key point is to give three litres to the calf within two hours of birth.

Colostrum should be from the first milking and taken inside the first eight hours after calving. It doesn’t necessarily have to be from the dam, but it does need to be good-quality colostrum to ensure the calves get as much antibodies as possible.

Quality can be determined by testing the colostrum using a colostrometer or brix refractometer, with values above 22% indicating good quality.

The way colostrum is stored can affect quality. Leaving it out in a bucket will allow bacteria present to multiply, which reduces the quality of the colostrum.

Best policy is to place it in a container or ziplock bag and put in a fridge or freezer. If putting in a fridge, the colostrum should be used within 48 hours. It’ll last for six months in a freezer. Freezing 3l of colostrum in a large 6l ziplock bag (available online from IKEA) greatly increases the surface area of the colostrum, allowing for fast thawing when it comes to feeding time. Never use microwaves or water hotter than 60°C to thaw colostrum.

Fertiliser: While many farmers have decided to delay the first application of chemical fertiliser to early February, if weather and ground conditions are good next week then it might be worth considering going a bit earlier with it.

This means it’s one less job to do before calving gets busy. Urea applied now will be growing grass for the next six to eight weeks. Typical response rates are in or around 10kg of grass per hectare for every 1kg of nitrogen applied per hectare.

Early nitrogen is an important tool on many reasonably well stocked dairy farms that hope to graze most or all of the farm in February and March.

Spreading a half bag per acre of urea now will grow an extra 12t DM of exceptional quality feed across a typical 100ac farm. Despite the high cost of nitrogen, this extra feed still represents reasonably good value for money provided it is grazed by cows.

On farms where this will be a challenge, it’s better to hold off on early nitrogen until later in February or early March.

There continues to be concern about supply of nitrogen in March and April. Farmers who typically purchase fertiliser from a merchant then should be taking steps to ensure supply now. Most are understandably waiting for prices to fall before placing orders but this is a risky strategy this year.

While those who need fertiliser now can get it, that may not be the case for those looking to buy in March and April. Farmers need to ask themselves which is more critical to them – buying expensive fertiliser or getting access to fertiliser. Answers will vary depending on farm system.

Slurry: Avoid spreading slurry on all the fields with low grass covers as some of these will be needed for grazing in February. This is a challenge this year as many fields have high grass covers ruling them out for slurry. If using low-emission slurry spreading, it’s possible to spread on covers of up to 1,000kg DM/ha.