Were getting ready for the commercials to start calving in little over two weeks. Its not like me to be this well planned but Im really excited about the commercial calves this year. More on that in a bit though.
Calving time is the continuation of the production cycle which started last year when the bull was turned out. It has been quiet as the calves have slowly developed inside their mums but things are hotting up and it is time to start thinking about the calving and subsequent management period and gearing up for some serious data collevtion amongst other things.
It is our goal here not to get stuck into calving and let the ladies get on with it themselves. Unfortunately we arent blessed with a dry farm so calving will take place indoors so hygiene is of top priority. I have been liming and treating the cubicles with Stalosan F for about a month now to control any bugs that may cause mastitis in the cows and have the calving pens limed and standing idle. Hopefully I will get them white washed before we start properly. The aim is to have as little involvement with the cows and calves as possible which includes antibiotic treatments.
We joined the Biobest Herdcare scheme last year and are testing the herds for our priority diseases. As the commercial herd is effectively closed and run on a seperate unit we only test them for BVD and IBR and have had a clear test for both which is great news. Hopefully this will stand to us when we start to market our high health status replacement heifers in the future, never mind the knowledge that we dont have either disease.
It is quite worrying about the spread of FMD throughout Turkey, Bulgaria and South Korea. We are only a tourist away from another tragedy. It has got me thinking about protecting our herds and what we can do here to keep disease out. Maybe I have become a bit of a hyporondriac, but I have become very aware of the risks associated with visiting other farms and other farmers visiting our premises. Its time for a health dose of disinfectant at the gate and controls on who actually gets into the livestock areas.
Here is a leaflet prepared by SAC about biosecurity on beef farms
Thats it for now. Next blog will be about data collection and what we should be looking for and recording at calving time both with the cow and the calf
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1 comments:
I think in the U.S. where we haven't had one of these serve breakouts in a very long time, we don't think about it as much. It is something that should be at the forefront of our minds. Good luck with your calf season. Here's to lots of healthy calves!
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