Dairy management: weather, colostrum quality and feeding cows at night

Weather: Don’t get too disheartened by the cold spell. Air temperatures are set to increase again next week. Soil temperatures are already around 1.50°C higher than normal and while they will drop in the current cold spell, they will quickly rise again because soils are dry. However, there is a good bit of rain forecast for next week. So we are back to “normal” weather for February, just in time for when cows should be going out grazing. Getting ground grazed in February is critical. Failure to do so means you will have a heap of grass in late March. The only option then is to close paddocks for silage, but this means going on a very short rotation and before you know it you are short of grass and will have to graze high covers that devastate yield and protein percent. But if you get enough ground grazed in February, you’ll have nice grass coming back in late March and April. Not only that, but cows will milk better when outside – it’s cheaper, you grow more grass and you make more profit. It’s a no-brainer. There is a bit of work and effort involved in on-off grazing and setting up wires. However, this is time well spent. Identify the paddocks you are going to start grazing in first. Check all fences and electric current. Identify a place on the farm to store reels and pigtails. If you’re not sure how to allocate grass you need to ask your adviser, or attend one of the grassland training courses that are available. Start grazing in covers of about 800kg to 1,000kg/ha.

Colostrum: There are two things that damage colostrum quality. The first is the time from calving to milking. The longer this interval is, the poorer quality the colostrum will be. It’s not always practical to milk cows within an hour or two of calving, so having a supply of good quality colostrum on hand is important and feed that as soon as possible after calving.

Bacteria also affect quality. If colostrum is kept outside in buckets bad bacteria will grow and multiply, especially when air temperatures are up around 100°C. The best policy is to store colostrum in containers (old milk cartons are ideal) and put these in the farm fridge. This colostrum can then be used as required. By right, you should know the Johne’s disease status of the cows that you are storing colostrum from.

Night feeds: Some farmers feed their cows in the evening and most cows then calve during the day. The thinking is that cows will be eating and ruminating for most of the night and won’t start calving until morning. Teagasc studies have found that when cows are fed at night 85% will calve between 6.30am and midnight. However, anecdotal evidence would suggest that more cows than normal calve at between 5am and 8am, so be prepared for extra work during this time. Some farmers will leave out the blocks of silage during the daytime, and just push them in at around 5pm or 6pm. Where it is not practical to feed at night, or where feed space is limited, consider just putting heifers or cows that are in-calf to beef bulls on the nighttime feeding regime.