Dairy
It is a pleasing sight to see some sun this week, however, with it is some cold weather which increases the risk of pneumonia in calves.
A lot of farmers will continue feeding whole milk this year, but is it worth going a step further and leaving calves at foot?
As spring calving pushes on and labour begins to stretch, farmers need to ensure they are still keeping an eye out for sick calves.
Calves should be introduced to starter ration or concentrates from around three days of age to aid rumen development.
With pens quickly filling with calves, it is important to remember how important of a role water plays in their diet.
As sheds begin to quickly fill up over the next two weeks as calves hit the ground, farmers need to be on the look out for pneumonia.
Beef
Ventilation will be key to calf health over the coming months according to a beef and sheep adviser with CAFRE.
Farmers need to remember that an inadequate pre-calving diet during the dry period can have a drastic impact on calf health.
As the autumn calving is well and truly underway rumen, a focus on the rumen development of young calves is a crucial aspect to...
Cows are calving away in autumn calving herds health issues such as abomasal bloat, can increasingly become a problem...
The ‘Feeding Success Stories Series’, looks at how high-quality calf nutrition has helped farmers boost herd performance.
There are plenty of calves on the ground for the herds that are milking cows over the winter months, and calf scour can pose a serious...
Calving has arrived or only around the corner for a lot of autumn herds and the final few preparations need to be made to ensure calf health..
After second-cut silage and after the breeding season, it is often a popular time for farmers to start digging, laying concrete and erecting..
We are now at that stage of the calving season where fewer cows are calving down and calf pens are filling and calf scour threatens...
OAD feeding can significantly help this process of weaning and it can also help considerably with the workload at this time of the year.
Investing in nutrition at the calf stage will offer farmers the highest returns in relation to Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR).
Eoin Corrigan has 275 cows to calve down this spring and uses a nursery shed to get calves sucking, trained and in good health in seven days.
Identifying sick calves this spring is vital for early treatment to get calves back on track and prevent the spread throughout the shed.
Disbudding calves is one job no farmer enjoys doing which is why many farmers opt for an Aberdeen Angus bull or a polled Hereford bull...
At this time of the year, farmers often move from feeding whole milk to milk replacer in order to start filling the bulk tank.
Your calves should have access to clean, palatable starter concentrates from three days of age to encourage them to start eating...
The spring calving period is underway and as more cows begin to calve down, the amount of colostrum left over will increase.
