Tick as many boxes as possible before spring calving
A large proportion of cows calving next spring have now been dried off for the winter.
Preparing these cows for their next calving event should now be a priority.
It is important to tick as many boxes as possible prior to the next crop of calves arriving.
On both beef and dairy farms, management of the dry cow is critical in achieving a successful calving season.
Poor nutrition strategies for cows during the dry period will result in cows that do not having enough energy to function efficiently after calving.
Over-fed cows during the dry period will often have calving difficulties and associated metabolic disorders after calving.
Management of dry suckler cows should be based around the following aims:
- Producing a healthy calf without complications.
- Calving down free of metabolic disorders (retained afterbirth, ketosis, milk fever, and displaced abomasum).
- Providing sufficient quantity and quality colostrum for the calf.
- Providing sufficient milk of good quality to rear the calf.
- Optimising grazed grass utilisation once calved.
- Going back in calf quickly.
As with all livestock nutrition decisions, you must establish the animal’s requirements first.
What are the cow’s requirements for maintenance, calf growth and mammary development?
What is her current body condition?
If it is a heifer, does she need to grow a little more before calving?
What is her calving date? Do you have accurate calving dates?
Once you have established what the dry cow needs, then you must establish the most effective way of delivering these requirements to her.
- What feeds are on the farm?
- Is sufficient forage in stock?
- What feeds are available locally? What quality is the available feed?
- Is silage palatable? Is it wet or dry? How well has it preserved?
- What feeding system do you have on the farm? Can all dry cows eat at the one time?
- What issues did you encounter around calving in the last calving season?
Look back at your records!
All of the above issues have a huge bearing on whether you can achieve the required performance consistently for the majority of cows in the herd.
How you feed dry cows will also have a large influence on how they will perform and digest their feeding after calving.
Remember that you want these cows to produce a lot of milk cheaply from grazed grass, to maximise weanling weight.
Many will over-simplify mineral supplementation to dry suckler cows.
It is not uncommon to come across suckler herds that don’t supply any minerals to cows.
Many herds now use a bolus in the dry period as their means of mineral supplementation, and this has worked very well on many farms.
I would suggest however that additional mineral supplementation beyond a bolus would be a good idea.
I base this on forage mineral results returning for 2016 silages.
Many are very high in lead, aluminium and iron, which are antagonists.
These will inhibit the availability of elements such as copper, manganese, zinc and selenium in particular.
In summary, based on these above observations, by all means use a bolus, but in conjunction with a good quality bag mineral that supplies additional macro minerals and vitamins.
Again, given the weather conditions which have prevailed for much of 2016, dosing is another box which needs to be ticked in suckler herds.
Dry sucklers should be treated for internal and external parasites after housing.
This will help with body condition improvement or maintenance, while improving feed digestion.
If untreated, parasites dramatically reduce animal performance and make the goals outlined above surrounding the calving event more difficult to achieve.
If you had calf health issues last spring, ask your vet about the best way of minimising the occurrence of these problems again.
What should you vaccinate for? Most vaccines need time in the cow’s system before they provide optimum protection.
Don’t forget good hygiene practices in your housing as a means of reducing the spread of disease.
Try to clean out calving boxes regularly.
It may not be possible to do so after each calving, so a fresh layer of deep straw between each birth will be a good option for many.
Remember that each box you tick is one less thing to worry about.
Look back at your records, and seek out effective solutions to past problems.
