This is a subscriber-only article
Another year of working with dairy heifers has begun, with a mixture of concrete plans and good old-fashioned farmer optimism to the fore.
The older batch have been synchronised and artificially inseminated on 9 May, and the younger cattle arrived here in the second half of the month.
The bigger heifers were AI’d after the usual 11-day programme had been completed. A young sweeper bull is now running with them – and I am watching him with a degree of apprehension that is probably unnecessary.
We had below average conception rates last year and even if there isn’t much you can do to influence results, it quarely knocks your confidence.
Therefore, when a few heifers came back in season around day 18, I found myself lying behind a hedge studying them like some sort of private detective, complete with a notepad and pencil to jot down those all-important tag numbers.
The reason for the secrecy is that with these extremely quiet animals, the excitement of walking among them seems to send them into some sort of mounting frenzy, and it would panic you into thinking they were all coming back to the bull.
Far better to covertly watch them from a distance. I suspect strip-grazing them behind the electric fence has trained them to associate my arrival with an unbelievably exciting move to fresh grass – they are easily pleased.
Boluses
Before turnout, they were made to swallow high iodine boluses, since this was deemed to be the most plausible reason for a mere 50% AI conception rate last year. We normally achieve closer to 70% with sexed semen, so we thought it prudent to rule out any potential problems. Actually, I’m not overly worried what happens this time around – it’s all about how many of them repeat over the coming weeks that really counts.
The New Zealand dairy-type system operated by the owner of the heifers doesn’t have room for passengers (or sentimentality for that matter) so late calvings are highly undesirable. Mind you, we’re already one down, since the vet’s initial inspection revealed one of them having, as he delicately put it, “no gearbox”. We’ll have to beef her.
Heifer calves
The calves arrived on 20 May, and they must be alright, because Susan inspected them and announced they were “wee darlings”.
They settled in extremely well and most importantly with freshly weaned youngstock, they were all enthusiastically eating meal.
I’ve no idea if it helps or not, but because they had been fed a pelleted form of meal, I bought a few bags of calf pencils to mix with my blended ration and hoped it would help with their transition.
Vaccine
Since I have had some experience of blackleg on this farm, they have already had their first shot of Bravoxin. Has anyone heard a rumour that some Clostridial vaccines are going to be in short supply later in the year?
However, apart from inclement weather and the risk of TB, my biggest problem will undoubtedly be lungworm.
After a few years of working out how best to control it in younger stock, I’ll have to operate a fairly robust strategy with the in-calf heifers too. I was too relaxed about it last year, and the older ones weren’t treated ‘til mid-July.
I thought I was doing a good thing by letting them get a bit of exposure, but just stretched things too far. They will be treated with Pour-on sometime around mid-June.
At the time of writing this piece, the sun is shining, grass is reasonably plentiful, quality grass has been baled and wrapped and the price of fertiliser is dropping by the week. Nothing can possibly ruin my happiness, can it?
SHARING OPTIONS: