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Autumn calf rearing
Nutrition and health for autumn calvers
Chasing those winter milk premiums provides a more stable year-round income stream, but autumn calving requires successfully navigating challenges like the extra feed costs associated with autumn herds. Profitability depends on good feed management, cow and calf health, and, as calving progresses into the colder, wetter months, having suitable infrastructure. A significant success factor is setting cows up well before dry-off, equally coupled with the transition period, which spans three weeks before calving and three weeks after calving. Doing transition well is going to reap benefits overall with good body condition scores, milk production, colostrum quality and quantity, calf growth, and better reproductive outcomes later. This also helps to keep the workload and family-life balance better too.
Words by Stacey Cosnett & Karen Fraser – Farmlands Technical Specialists
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Nutrition challenges for autumn calvers
Autumn calvers face challenges in feed supply and quality versus demand. Supplementary feed is often required for both cows and any growing young stock currently on farm to meet production and performance demands. Traditionally autumn calvers have high NDF (fibre) and low protein issues when feeding late summer pastures and being supplemented with maize silage or palm kernel expeller. This means milk production can be disappointing; on top of that, cows are often already under heat stress and struggling to eat enough. So, their diet needs to be balanced with a more energy and protein dense supplement for better nutritional balance and higher milk production.
Ensuring that the body condition score at calving is 5 for mix-aged cows and 5.5 for first and second time calvers is crucial, rather than losing condition caused by decreasing dry matter intakes and late pregnancy demands. The cow also needs extra energy for not only body condition but milk production, managing heat stress, for the growing calf as the calf takes up increasing abdominal space late pregnancy. As winter milking progresses, signs of an unbalanced diet can be low milk production, low milk urea and we can often see winter milkers that are in good condition, but are not producing well which is a classic sign of not enough protein in the diet, caused by the low protein supplements we may be feeding.
Vaccination and health
Vaccinating the herd for things like Clostridia, Rotavirus and Salmonella should be administered a few weeks prior to calving to boost antibody levels in the colostrum. Think of it like taking out an insurance policy, and as long as timing is right, it ensures higher levels of antibodies are present in colostrum for an improved passive immunity transfer to calves. The calf must however still consume enough colostrum within the first few hours of life to get the full benefit. Calves are born with little to no immunity to disease as unlike humans and other mammals, the cow placenta prevents the transfer of antibody molecules. Discuss vaccinations with your vet.
Cows also need key minerals, trace minerals, and essential vitamins to boost requirements and strengthen the immune system and reduce the risk of metabolic issues such as milk fever, ketosis, and retained foetal membranes post calving.
Talk to your local Farmlands Technical Field Sales rep or SealesWinslow Nutrition Sales Specialist to help with specific pre-calving options to balance the diet including minerals and trace elements for your herd's specific needs.
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