Cows, calves and veterinary

Into the dry: Take Two

Unsurprisingly, the reprieve (16 mm rain one weekend, 12 the following) was short-lived and has simply given grass growth a sufficient boost to get us back to where we were before we grazed all the grass on the last round.

I'm now telling everyone who'll listen that there ain't gonna be an autumn flush this year - you only have to look at the ground to see that the weather forecast's got to be a lot less bright and sunny if the green stuff is gonna keep green.
A drive off the farm suggests that all the other farmers knew before me :(

Spoke to a friend from the Waikato earlier, and learned that feed-out exhaustion has set in up there and there's no grass to speak of.

There was good news? No, it was bad news. 62 was diagnosed MT today.
Plus two young Jerseys who will find homes with a kind farmer prepared to give them another chance to get in calf :-) - if he's quick enough, he can get them in milk and put a wee calf with each.

And that was it. Including the MT eczema cull that went in February, 4 cows out of 155 were not in-calf at the end of 14 weeks mating - 151 apparently are/were.
If every year was like this farmers wouldn't be spending hours raising pretty heifer calves every spring (and thousands on grazing fees).
*should note here that the mating opportunity was actually between 17 - 18 weeks, just that almost nothing cycled and the bull failed to get in calf those that did.

posted by nellta holdings @ 2:24 AM