Cows, calves and veterinary

wandering around the farm with a camera, 23 July

Two days after the official start of calving, I've got 21 cows milking in the clostrum herd (including 86 whose adopted calves are now geting waste milk and who gave eighteen litres on her first day back on machine milking), one down cow I've moved today to a paddock of long grass by the shed and four new-calved cows in the springing mob.
I tagged the seventh replacement heifer tonight, and so far around two-thirds of the calves born have been bulls. Some of these early calvers were in calf to short-gestation bulls - Meridian has a gestation length seven days shorter than average.

This is the colostrum herd. The springers are in the opposite paddock, on the right hand side, and through the gap the dark grazed area where the later calvers have just grazed can be seen. The later ones (of which twelve are springing and need drafted into the other herd within the next two or three days) are held tight on hay and grass at 7.5 - 8.5 kg DM per cow per day. They graze pretty much down to the ground. The springers leave behind a little more, and are offered around 9 kg a day. The calved cows are being fed grass alone, and I use the old rule of thumb - 70 square metres for a milking cow. Even though they're on shorter grass than the dry cows, they're looking well fed. Later, when most of the herd is calved, I'll need to keep a close eye on the daily area they're getting to ensure we don't run out of grass by being on too fast a round before the spring growth fully kicks in. right now I just rely on the knowledge that 70m2 gives them enough without any wastage.
In a few days I'll split the colostrum mob and send a herd of cows that can supply milk to the factory to the back of the farm, drafting into it from the colostrum mob if the cows are four days calved and have no problems.


Number 21 (second calver, she also calved three-quartered as a heifer, her only fault) had a newborn calf mid-morning. The bull is about four hours old now.


Number 1's calf, the firstborn, looked like a miserable scrap as a tiny baby. Here he is in the calf shed, two days old and showing better potential. He's still on the farm, and is one of the best-looking calves in the shed. I've had a couple of other Taylor calves born since, but he's the only one that is pure Jersey.


Official start date was the 21 July, and what do I find that morning but a Jersey cow glued to the ground with a newborn calf behind her. She's a five year old, about the youngest that cows are likely to get milk fever (hypocalcaemia or calcium deficiency). And of course, four other cows and calves that were able to walk home.
Most of the milk fever cases I saw last year (and I saw a lot on this farm) weren't down for very long after treatment, if they had collapsed at all. Number 70 has been getting calcium first every six hours, then every twelve hours, and I feel the milk fever has stabilised but she is still too weak to rise - she has tried several times, and is looking bright and alert. She is able to move around through her attempts to get up (this is why her water bucket and the hay are at her tail instead of in front of her nose where I put them).
Her calf is with her still, as an aid to her recovery - nothing like *not* removing the new calf from a sick cow if you want her to try to survive. He gets bottle-fed out in the paddock.


An important part of the farm at any time of the year, but especially now. A clean dry place to store feed and minerals - this old shed is currently housing bags of Magnesium Oxide, Calcium Carbonate and calf meal. There are a couple of left-over bags of Zinc Oxide, which will keep till next year when they'll be mixed into drench to help prevent Facial Eczema.
All of the cows are being supplemented with Magnesium - blood tests in the autumn showed a deficiency, and a more recent blood test suggests that levels of both magnesium and calcium are okay, but it's still essential that the cows are supplemented from before calving right through until the summer growth allows the amount of mineral available in pasture to meet their requirements.
The colostrum cows are being dusted with lime flour, as they have an extremely high demand for calcium while they are transitioning from dry and calving to milking. Last year I tried mixing it with the drench - it didn't work; too thick. So this year I'll dust it on the grass ahead of the colostrum cows and hope that once they move into the milking herd they're over the danger period for milk fever.


The other half of the shed. And no, it didn't look much like this before the gales blasted through. While we didn't get the tornadoes or the severe storm damage that some other parts of the country are suffering, we did lose a roof, and some fresh shavings from the calf shed.
All in all, the weather has been good this winter. I doubt we've had anything like average rain, and certainly not the flooding of last year. Most of the downpours have come at night, leaving the days often good enough to work with, and apart from some very small, isolated spots, there has only been very mild pugging damage.


I tried! This is the best photo I managed to get of the baby calves.


This one is more typical. The blur in the corner hunting down the dog - that's number one's little fella.


Between low light conditions and calves running about...
This type of shed isn't really recommended for calves any more, but this is a good one. It's a wood slatted floor, two panels per pen that can be lifted for cleaning once all the calves are out. There's good race access, and it's close to the dairy for carrying milk. I bring all the newborn calves in here and once they're over four days old they either leave the farm as bobbys or get back on the calf tray on the tractor and unloaded at the other shed, which has larger pens, deep shavings and a water supply (once I connect it up again, that is). From the larger shed, the calves go out to grass during the day once they're old enough, until conditions are good enough to let them out full-time and feed them milk in the paddocks.
The slatted floor sheds have a name for being draughty, but this one isn't - there's only an inch or so of air-space under the calves and with the doors facing an iron wall, the wind has to be blowing in a very special direction to whistle through underneath the calves. It's almost too cosy - each pen has a split door like a stable box and when I first saw the shed it had been closed (and unused for two years) and the air was musty and distinctly stale. Calves need a lot of airspace, which means at least one of the half doors must be open at all times and preferably all three, for light and air.
It comfortably holds thirty calves. Depending how fast they're coming in, each pen will hold all the calves from a one or two day intake and will be fed the milk appropriate to the youngest of that group. After around five days the pen will be emptied - I may put a small calf into the next pen if he's not ready to move out with the rest, or a heifer or two that I want to keep on colostrum for a little longer to make up a group to take over to the other shed. Once the pen is empty it gets a good hose down with the yard hose and left to dry before new calves go in. This helps prevent the floor getting too slippery - and those slats are slippery if they get milk on them, which is probably the biggest drawback of this shed.
The dog helps too - and I see he's getting fat again. A few minutes in each pen suffices for him to clean up any calf deposits or spilt milk that haven't yet been pushed through to the floor beneath the slats.
Health problems in the under-a-week-olds last year? Calves born brain-damaged. That was it. That's as good a sign as any that the housing is good enough for what a baby calf needs. I might disinfect the place twice during the calving season, and that's all - it's far less than is recommended, but then, I don't seem to be getting enough of a build-up of pathogens (or lack of calf immunity) to cause problems.

posted by nellta holdings @ 2:48 AM