Tasmanian Livestock Production Specialist Nathan Saunders, explains some of the essentials to keep your dairy calves on track.
Spring calving is all but done and dusted for most farmers in south eastern Australia, with attention now fixed on spring mating programs and peak milk production.
Tasmanian Livestock Production Specialist Nathan Saunders says that with days getting busier, it’s often it’s easy for producers to forget to manage their calves to their peak performance. He explains some of the essentials to keep calves on track.
Although animals are often weaned on targets, young calves can struggle due to insufficient feed or feed quality, and animal health practices being missed. Dietary requirements of a higher protein and consistent feed type for rumen development is crucial to achieve weight gain targets.
The benefits of increased calf weight gains are easily seen with better overall animal health. There will be less need for expensive feed costs when trying to ‘catch up’ future breeders and earlier opportunities to export dairy cattle weighing greater than 190 kilograms, one to even two months sooner.
Young calf weight gain targets can be achieved easier than that of older animals.
According to Dairy Australia, an important concept to understand when rearing heifers is that they become less efficient at using energy for growth as they get older. A heifer calf weighing 100 kilograms requires about 20 megajoules of metabolisable energy (MJ ME) to put on a kilogram of liveweight, while a 400 kilogram heifer requires double that – 40 MJ ME to put on the same weight1.
A rule of thumb is that a heifer needs to be on an 800 gram per day increase from 90 to 100 kilogram weaning to reach target joining and calving weights. Elders’ Livestock Production team can help you achieve that.
Regular weighing can be done in conjunction with treatments, in line with your Elders animal health plan, at strategic times in the calf’s growth stages. Animals that do not reach the desired daily weight gain target, or lose weight, should be drafted into a separate mob for special treatment. A feed budget, timely vaccinations and regular testing for drench responses and trace element deficiencies, all form part of a customised plan for the grower.
References
1. Dairy Australia, 2022
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