Continued monitoring of your heifer calves is vital to ensure that growth targets are achieved ahead of breeding next year.
Calving dairy heifers at 24-months-old has been shown to achieve maximum lifetime productivity, and long-term profitability in the milking herd.
A significant reason as to why dairy heifers don’t calve down at 24 months is due to them failing to achieve growth targets throughout their life.
Heifer Calves
Ongoing weighting of heifers should have been taking place throughout their first year at grass.
Grazing this year due to weather was a challenge, but the target for these calves is to be 60% of their mature weight at breeding next May.
This means that replacement heifers need to achieve a steady gain of approximately 0.70-0.80 kg/day from birth.
During the year calves that were below target should have drafted out and given preferential treatment (access to higher quality grass and concentrates).
Now that these calves have entered the shed, they should be weighted again and separated into groups relative to the target weight.
These groups can then be fed accordingly to their requirements to achieve the target weight at breeding.
Housing
The target for your heifer calves at housing is to be 40% of their mature body weight, and the weight in kilos should be determined by their maintenance figure.
When these calves leave the shed in February, the target is for them to be 50% of their mature body weight.
Feeding good quality silage to these calves to avoid growth checks and reduce the reliance on concentrate feeding.
Weighing the heifers while housed is also advised, to ensure that they continue to grow and targets are being achieved.
Silage Quality
Heifer growth targets can be achieved with high quality silage, but lower quality forage will require concentrate supplementation.
Knowing the quality of the feed being over to your heifers is important to ensure that they do not fall behind.
E.g., heifers being fed a 70% dry matter digestibility (DMD) silage will continue to achieve their targets with supplementation of 0.5 to 1kg/head/day.
For every 5% drop in DMD, an additional 1kg of concentrates will be required for targets to be met.
When concentrates are fed either on top of the silage or in a feed trough, it is essential that all of the animals can eat at the same time to reduce competition.
(Source – Agriland – Brian Mc Donnell – 19/11/2023)
Dairy advice: Farm roadways a worthwhile investment
Farm roadways play a vital part in our grass-based dairy production model, and continue to be a worthwhile investment for farms.
The grazing season has ended for the year and farmers can now determine how successful the season has been.
2023 was a challenging year for dairy farmer, with weather conditions hampering grass throughout the year.
One way of keeping cows at grass and being allowing for flexibility, is having a good layout for farm roadways in place.
Farm Roadways
Most farms already have roadways in place, but additions or extensions to these roadways could significantly improve grazing during challenging weather conditions.
When laying out a roadway there are a number of factors that need to be considered.
For a herd with 150 cows or fewer, a roadway width of 4.5m is adequate, with an additional 0.5m for every extra 100 cows advised.
In some areas, like between paddocks that will only be used during adverse weather conditions, the width can be reduced.
While for high traffic areas, such as near the parlour, having a wider track is advised.
You want the roadway to be as short as possible, but you also want to have access to as many paddocks as possible and to avoid bottlenecks.
The surface is also an important consideration; a poor surface or one that is too hard can result in increased lameness cases.
Another thing to consider, is whether a suitably placed cow track can also be the ideal place to mobility score the herd as they go out, or in.
Doing this will give you an indication of the tracks performance, as well as the herd’s mobility.
Regular scoring can help to identify cows in the first stages of a lameness problem, and therefore results in early and effective intervention and treatment.
Flexibility
When it comes to a grass-based dairy system, flexibility is key, with good roadways on farm aiding this.
Having adequately designed roadways mean that during challenging conditions, cows can still access grass, even if just for a couple of hours.
On many farms a centre roadway is used to access the majority of paddocks, but by having roadways coming off this you can access different parts of the paddock.
This helps to prevent damage, and ensures that maximum graze out is achieved on farms.
Although investments made on many farms will be small this year, improving the grazing infrastructure is always worthwhile.
Adding or extending roadways in the right areas should result in grazing being easy during challenging conditions.
When making these investments, it is important to determine where you will achieve the maximum benefit from them.
Additions should be made in areas where the most paddocks can be accessed or where it is required the most.
(Source – Agriland – Brian Mc Donnell – 19/11/2023)