Herd Tasks: Your weekly farming checklist
Some poorer quality silages are reducing total intakes of feed in advanced cattle.
- Once stock go indoors, clean out water troughs regularly. If cattle don’t drink, they don’t eat and as a result, don’t perform. By regularly I mean at least weekly.
- Soil test underperforming paddocks and aim to apply lime where it is required before next season. It is the cheapest fertiliser you can buy.
- Autumn calving - take account of the quality limitations of autumn grass and its current availability to a fresh cow and supplement accordingly. Autumn cows will be far better if in by night from now on, or perhaps housed fully.
- Driving intake must be your priority to boost milk and fertility performance. Consistent feeding indoors is the way to achieve this as we head towards November and AI season for autumn 2023 calving.
- Spring calvers with still 40 to 50 days of milking to do will also benefit from being in by night. It will mean they can stay out by day for longer into the winter where grass is available and weather permits.
- Youngstock will often be underfed when forages are poor, particularly immediately after housing. The stress of housing and grouping in pens can significantly suppress appetite, and if the diet is made of poor-quality ingredients, then this issue is magnified quickly.
- Get calves off to the best possible start with a good supply of colostrum. Lazy drinkers should be stomach tubed if necessary within the first six hours. Remember that if you have vaccinated cows, then the full benefit will not be transferred to the calves if sufficient colostrum is not consumed.
- Don’t stock pens too heavily to avoid bullying of fresh cows and injury to calves.
- Ensure that fresh calvers have access to magnesium licks at grass.
- Consider housing cows and calves in advance of breeding as grass intakes alone will not be sufficient for milk, maintenance and fertility performance.
- Dry sucklers need to be on bare paddocks or on stronger silages just after drying off to keep control of condition.
- Watch that cattle on heavy feeding are not getting acidosis: Look for loose dung, cud balls, drooling of saliva and lameness as signs.
- Some poorer quality silages are reducing total intakes of feed in advanced cattle and this is slowing down weight gains and will result in delayed slaughter. Low forage intakes will also increase the likelihood of digestive upsets as above.
