Make plans for a better calving season in 2013
You may be slow to ask “how did calving go this spring?” because it brings memories of cold nights and not enough sleep. But if you wait too long, until the autumn, time will have mellowed most of the events, and you will have difficulty matching a calving season with particular problems.
So now is the best time to make a few notes on what to change for next year. The first step is to list the dead calves.
Your cattle are in a recording system that will provide that information. If not, grab a piece of paper and pen, and list the calves. Your calving notebook should have the dead calves checked off, and a brief notation on what happened to each. Until all the calves are listed, the shock of lost opportunities has not had its full impact.
Can you identify a pattern of problems? Was most of the death loss right at delivery, and did it involve two-year-old heifers?
This could indicate that sire selection needs to be done more carefully, with attention being paid to easy-calving sires for heifers.
Perhaps the heifers were underdeveloped. This could contribute to more calving difficulty than necessary. Does this indicate improvements needed in young-stock feeding and management?
Do you provide assistance to heifers after they have been in stage two of labour for one hour?
Was the death loss more prevalent after the calves had reached 10 days to two weeks of age? This, of course, often means that calf diarrhoea (or scours) is a major concern.
Calf scours can be more likely to occur to calves from first-calving heifers. Calves that receive inadequate amounts of colostrum within the first six hours of life are five to six times more likely to die from calf scours.
Calves born to thin heifers are weakened at birth and receive less colostrum, which compounds the likelihood of scours. Often, these same calves were born via a difficult delivery, which adds to the chances of them getting sick and dying. All of this means that we need to reassess the heifer-growing programme, to ensure that the heifers are at a body condition score of three at calving time.
Do you use the same calving boxes each year for calving? There may be a build-up of bacteria or viruses that contribute to calf diarrhoea in these boxes.
Ideally, calving boxes should be cleaned out and disinfected between each calving. However, on a busy farm in the spring, during the calving season, this is virtually impossible.
Maybe having two calving boxes or more will allow each to be cleaned out while the others are being used.
It is always a good idea to get new calves and their mothers out of the calving boxes as soon as they can be moved comfortably.
While indoors, calves under cows should be penned where possible with similar-aged calves.
