Autumn calving suckler farms are now bracing themselves for a busy period. Without a doubt, calving in the autumn brings a different set of challenges, than the more common spring calving. In general, herd health tends to be better, but control of the diet pre-calving can be more difficult. This week, I caught up with two of the autumn calving farms in the Teagasc/Irish Farmers Journal BETTER farm beef challenge to see how they are approaching this calving period.

Maurice Hearne - Waterford

Maurice has 115 suckler cows and heifers to calve this autumn. Calving started on 10 July and will last for around 12 weeks. Fifty-five cows have calved so far, with little need for assistance.

Pre-calving

“For the summer before they calve I consider the cows as toppers. I have the mature cows split into two groups and then I have a group of maiden heifers. The two groups of cows graze behind a group of weanling bulls and heifers and the maidens graze behind the fattening heifers.

“Because of the poor growth rates at times this year, I found that when the cows were grazing behind the young stock, they were eating too much of the regrowth. Instead, I had to strip-graze them on some fields with heavy, stemmy covers. In the days prior to calving, cows move to a bare paddock closer to the yard and get a bale of stemmy, coarse haylage every evening. For minerals, all cows are bolused four to five weeks before calving.

Calving

“Strip-grazing the cows this year has worked quite well from a management point of view. I move the fence a small distance every day and when the cows line-up to graze, I can see any cows that are springing-up to calve. Feeding a bale in the calving paddock works well too, as I can see any cows on the point of calving around the ring feeder. Likewise, feeding at night-time has worked well in pushing back calving until the morning time. Monitoring takes place throughout the day and last thing at night. If I see a cow sick to calve, I might bring her into the shed if I think she could have a hard calving, but by-and-large I like to let most calve outside to minimise disease risk. Traditionally, I always used the one calving paddock, but last year I ran into problems with crypto in it. This year, I will change my calving paddock half way through the calving period to reduce disease build-up.

Post-calving

“Cows and new-born calves stay on the bare calving paddock for five to seven days so I can be sure the calf is sucking all four teats and to allow the navel to dry up. Once I feel that the calf is able to keep the cow sucked out, they will be moved to fresh pasture. All calves are dehorned and an alamycin spray plus a pour-on are used to keep flies away from the calves’ head. In terms of vaccinations, all calves receive an IBR vaccine and an RSV/Pi3 vaccine up the nose before they turn two weeks old. I put them in the dehorning crate to do this, but it is never done at the same time as dehorning. All calves receive a vaccination against clostridial disease too.

Breeding

“Breeding will start in the second week of September. This year I am hoping to shorten the breeding season to ten weeks and this should allow me to get the bulk of my cows in-calf prior to housing. For the last few years, I have had to house cows in the middle of the breeding season and I have noticed that this transition into the shed is corresponding to an almost two-week break during the calving season.

Ken Gill - Offaly

Organic farmer Ken Gill has 75 sucklers and maiden heifers to calve this autumn. Fourteen have calved so far, with 14 live calves since the end of July. All are due to be calved by 1 October.

Pre-calving

“Cows have gotten a tight-do all summer. They were grazing around after the beef cattle so I am pretty happy that they are in good condition. We have a large field in front of the house and it’s divided up. As the cows moved closer to calving, they were split up and put into that field which had a good strong cover on it at the time. They stay here until they calve, and because the calving season is short and cows are being pulled out very regularly, we won’t need to allocate any extra fodder to them. All cows received a mineral bolus prior to calving and they were vaccinated against leptospirosis. This has been our best year yet in preventing mastitis. Cows were treated with a pour-on every three to four weeks and garlic licks were offered from the end of May. It has worked very well.

Calving

Monitoring takes place frequently throughout the day and last thing at night. Because all the cows are in the field in front of the house, it is very easy to keep an eye on them. As soon as a cow calves, she is pulled out of the calving field and moved to a fresh pasture. Calves are also tagged as they are being moved.

Post-calving

After calving, cows and calves are moved to the cleanest pasture we have available. Usually this is after grass from silage ground - it doesn’t have to have a very heavy grass cover, we just like it to be a clean pasture to limit disease, flies and to easily keep an eye on the cow and calf. Calves are not vaccinated against anything, just dehorned.

Breeding

Breeding will commence at the end of October and last until Christmas. After increasing the level of AI usage over the last number of years, this year we are going 100% AI. All breeding will take place indoors.

As is required with organics, all cows are housed on straw bedding. In our case, all the cows are housed in the one group and calves will be going out to grass during the day-time. With cows in a big group, heat detection should be easier. The only slight disadvantage is that all cows will have to be housed prior to the commencement of the breeding season, but this will free up more ground for the beef cattle at the same time.