Brian Reidy: Pre-breeding management can make all the difference in conception rates
If you are buying a new bull for the coming breeding season, try to get him on-farm well in advance of putting him to work.
April has started out in a very harsh manner, with grass growth slow to take off. Cold and rain are no good for grass growth and most are reporting less than 20kg per day.
Care must be taken that you don’t finish the first round of grazing too soon, as the paddocks grazed at the start of the season don’t have enough to go back into them yet.
If you need to slow down the rotation until growth improves, then start to supplement sooner rather than later.
You can stretch grass when you have it, but it's hard to stretch it when it's gone!
On the other side, when growth does get going, be prepared to reduce or eliminate supplementation fast and speed up the rotation.
Increasing grass intake quickly for both cow and calf will improve performance and reduce stress.
At turn-out, the most important thing to monitor is grass intake and rumen fill. Poor intakes of grass should be supplemented with forages or concentrates.
Now that you have calved the cow, your attention must now shift to getting them back in calf.
Most suckler cows will lose body condition after calving but this needs to be controlled in order to produce enough quality milk for her calf while going back in calf quickly.
Grass quality and supply will determine if you need to supplement cows with additional forage or concentrates. The current weather conditions can result in suckler cows going down with tetany.
This is as a result of a magnesium deficiency. Grass is inherently deficient in magnesium and it is worth noting that cows are generally deficient in magnesium well before they drop with tetany.
A magnesium deficiency may result in poor saliva production and subsequently in poorer digestion of feed and lower production levels.
Magnesium is a major macro mineral essential for performance in cattle.
There are several ways to get sufficient magnesium into cows:
- High magnesium lick buckets: This is probably the most common way to feed magnesium to cows in Ireland and works very well once buckets are always accessible.
- Magnesium in water troughs: This is a popular method, however, in wet weather, where cows drink less from troughs, it may not be as effective.
- Meal feeding: Some may feed a dairy meal to sucklers during times of tetany risk, particularly if grass is in short supply.
- Dusting of paddocks with magnesium: However, I can't vouch for this method's reliability.
Be sure it works for you before you depend on any single method of tetany protection.
Whichever method you choose, be sure to stick rigidly to it. The cost of tetany prevention is insignificant compared to losing cows.
An infertile or sub-fertile bull can throw your calving pattern into total disarray. Empty cows are a big cost to any herd.
Monitor your bull’s activity closely and aim to keep accurate heat detection records. Observed heats should be recorded to watch for repeats as this will aid in uncovering any issues with fertility.
If you are buying a new bull for the coming breeding season, try to get him on-farm well in advance of putting him to work. A proportion of breeders now also get bulls' fertility tested before sale. It gives the buyer and seller great peace of mind.
Bulls should be in good body condition before the breeding season starts.
Breeding will begin soon so get your new or old bull ready for action!
Some steps to get cows ready for breeding:
- Pre-breeding heat detection: Take note of heat activity so you can monitor cows once breeding commences. This will also help to identify non-cycling cows. Cows not cycling need to be checked for problems to improve submission rates.
- Pre-breeding vaccination programmes should now be decided on — consult with your vet regarding timings, etc.
- A good practice would be to get your vet to take random blood samples from a proportion of your herd and do a disease screen to establish what you should vaccinate for. Lepto, IBR and salmonella are the main ones to look out for in the suckler herd.
- If you will be using AI, pick out your bull team well in advance of breeding and have a plan written down, outlining what bulls are being used on each cow and heifer.
