Pre-weaning calf nutrition is vital
- Feed milk replacer to manufacturer’s recommendations for bucket reared calves
- Feed ad lib ration to calves
- Complete a fodder budget for winter 2022
Ed Curtin April Update
- Silage ground should be closed up now
- Ensure that you have spread enough N, P and K
- Take the opportunity to spread lime on grazing ground
Follow nutrient management plan
- Did weanlings and stores gain the target 0.6 kg/day?
- If not, what can be done to improve this for next winter?
- Check that maiden heifers are meeting their targets
Weigh cattle before turnout to grass
Animal Nutrition
Ed has 36 calves bought this spring so far – 35 bulls and 1 heifer. Most of them were sourced from a farm and are mainly AI bred to a sire AA4743. The calves were between 18 to 20 days of age when they were bought. The calves were on ad-lib whole milk (~9 litres) before they arrived on the farm and this was mixed with a small amount of milk replacer to help their stomachs adjust. They were fed the evening they left the farm and travelled in a straw bedded trailer for 2 hours to Ed’s farm.
When they came to the farm Ed started feeding them 800g of 23% CP milk powder for 7 to 10 days, diluted according to the manufacturer’s guidelines and given twice per day. He then gradually reduced this to 600g and then to 500g of milk powder which was fed once per day (in the morning) to reduce workload. The calves are fed with a 10 unit and 2 unit compartmentalised teat feeder and are housed in groups of 12 to allow for this. They have ad-lib access to 18% CP nuts. Ed feeds all calves an acidifer with the milk replacer that costs €90/bucket.
Ed completed a fodder budget for next winter and estimates that he will need 738 bales of silage for his 26 cows, calves and finishing cattle, if no ration was fed. When ration is factored in he typically needs 500 bales of silage and has calculated that enough land is closed up for silage to produce these at a yield of approximately 7 bales per acre for the first cut and 6 bales per care for the second cut. This will ensure that the silage produced will be the best possible quality and reduce the requirement for high meal feeding levels next winter.
Soil Fertility
Approximately 40 tonnes of lime has been spread on Ed’s outfarm at a rate of 2t/acre to help raise the soil pH and increase his grass growth and fertiliser efficiency. There is a suspected issue with high Molybdenum on some of this land and therefore the soil pH should be kept below a pH of <6.1. Spreading 2t of lime per acre will raise the soil pH by 0.6 and as the average soil pH is 5, this will bring it up to 5.6 and keep within the safe zone of a soil pH of less than 6.1.
Ed has just under 60 units of chemical nitrogen/acre spread on his silage ground, which is in addition to the ~25 units of nitrogen spread through the 2750 gallons/acre slurry with the dribble bar and cord earlier in the year which is adequate to replace nutrient offtakes from his crop of silage (85 units N, 14 units P and 83 units K).
Performance
Ed weighed all the cattle on the farm on 16th April. The autumn born heifers (9) were an average weight of 290kg, having gained 1.19 kg/day since their previous weighing on 22nd January. The autumn born bulls (7) were an average weight of 313kg, having gained 1.22 kg/day since their previous weighing. Ed is in the process of weaning the bull calves and his plan is to sell them in June. The heifers will be weaned before the end of the month. The cows start calving from August so they will be dry for 3 to 4 months.
The 2020 in calf heifers (9) were an average weight of 566 kg, having gained 0.8 kg per day on average over the winter period from the 6th of November.
The 2021 born dairyX cattle were an average weight of 368kg and gained an average of 0.87 kg/day over the winter period.
Ed is finishing with his spring calving system and sold the 2021 spring born heifers in the mart recently. One BB heifer was 440kg and made €1840 (€4.18/kg), another LM heifer made €1140 at 370kg (€3.08/kg) and the third was 365kg and made €1120 (€3.06/kg).