Getting bulling heifers to weight

crashbox · Oct 28, 2021

Hi TFF,

Aiming to hit first calving about 24 months.

Wondering what supplements, if any, people feed, to get growth rates.

Here they graze in summer set stocked permanent pasture, housed in winter and fed maize/round bale silage. Plus 2kg 16% cake per day from 3 months til in calf.

Keen to hear what others are doing, and if I can cut back on cake etc.

Cheers,

CB

Barmyfarmer · Oct 28, 2021

What size cow do you aim for?

Timbo · Oct 28, 2021

crashbox said:
Hi TFF,

Aiming to hit first calving about 24 months.

Wondering what supplements, if any, people feed, to get growth rates.

Here they graze in summer set stocked permanent pasture, housed in winter and fed maize/round bale silage. Plus 2kg 16% cake per day from 3 months til in calf.

Keen to hear what others are doing, and if I can cut back on cake etc.

Cheers,

CB

What breed ?

crashbox · Oct 28, 2021

Barmyfarmer said:
What size cow do you aim for?

We milk holsteins, need them to come in strong as cattle housing slightly constrained in terms of feed space etc.
Usually AI at 380kg minimum, adult cows approx. 650kg.

Barmyfarmer · Oct 28, 2021

By the sounds of it your heifers are fed very well, I use roughly 900kg of corn first winter as calves, then permanent pasture all summer with no corn or supplement, then bring them in for serving on silage/hay and a bit of corn then as soon as they are in calf drop the corn, 360kg minimum but most of them end up 380-400kg

crashbox · Oct 28, 2021

Yes I've got my suspicions that we feed them took much cake...! Thanks

dinderleat · Oct 28, 2021

crashbox said:
Hi TFF,

Aiming to hit first calving about 24 months.

Wondering what supplements, if any, people feed, to get growth rates.

Here they graze in summer set stocked permanent pasture, housed in winter and fed maize/round bale silage. Plus 2kg 16% cake per day from 3 months til in calf.

Keen to hear what others are doing, and if I can cut back on cake etc.

Cheers,

CB

Just serve at 14 months

In the pit · Oct 28, 2021

Biggest gains can be made from birth to weaning when you should be able to double birth weight plus 10/15 kgs by 50 days calved

Jdunn55 · Oct 28, 2021

In the pit said:
Biggest gains can be made from birth to weaning when you should be able to double birth weight plus 10/15 kgs by 50 days calved

From memory for 1kg you feed at 0-3 months the calf will put on 0.5kg but once over 12 months they will only put on 0.1kg

In the pit · Oct 28, 2021

Check this out on Agriland - Maximising calf performance pre-weaning
https://www.agriland.co.uk/farming-news/maximising-calf-performance-pre-weaning/

buffalo_soldier · Oct 28, 2021

Attention on colostrum transfer and birth to weaning growth pays life long dividends I find.

Timbo · Oct 28, 2021

buffalo_soldier said:
Attention on colostrum transfer and birth to weaning growth pays life long dividends I find.

Agreed - if rumen isnt developed 100% at weaning they'll never reach potential no matter how much cake they have.

Spudley · Oct 29, 2021

We aim to calve at 21 months - xbred freisian/red breed/monty - and the first hours/days are crucial. It's not rocket science, it's colostrum & cleanliness & general herd health. We do feed whole milk (bad!) pretty much ad lib for 12 weeks, and they're out on a milk feeder as soon as possible. They have about 1 kg of cake from weaning till 5monthsish. I rotate between 3 paddocks until the autumn when they graze reseeds & aftermath. They come in when they're about 8 months, when they have approx 1.5 kg dairy cake and silage. We start serving about 12.5 months, no AI, just bulls. We turn out to off grazing so ai would be a bit tricky. We do semen test the Bulls, it's usually a bull issue if things go wrong.

TheRanger · Oct 29, 2021

Spudley said:
We aim to calve at 21 months - xbred freisian/red breed/monty - and the first hours/days are crucial. It's not rocket science, it's colostrum & cleanliness & general herd health. We do feed whole milk (bad!) pretty much ad lib for 12 weeks, and they're out on a milk feeder as soon as possible. They have about 1 kg of cake from weaning till 5monthsish. I rotate between 3 paddocks until the autumn when they graze reseeds & aftermath. They come in when they're about 8 months, when they have approx 1.5 kg dairy cake and silage. We start serving about 12.5 months, no AI, just bulls. We turn out to off grazing so ai would be a bit tricky. We do semen test the Bulls, it's usually a bull issue if things go wrong.

Here the AA’s and dairy bulls get adlib (9-10L usually) waste whole milk for 10-12 weeks.

If you didnt have the threat of Johnes and could do the replacement heifers the same way, it would be much easier.

Spudley · Oct 29, 2021

Johnes is always at the back of my mind, we test quarterly, every yellow cow has a leg band and their milk doesn't go to the calves (we divert the first row to a second tank for the calves) and all red cows are culled. Currently no Reds and 2 yellows out of 150.

Princess Pooper · Oct 29, 2021

We currently average 24 months but have been lower in the past. Change from 22/23 months is not because we don't manage them as well, but because we have tightened up the service period to Holstein.

Previously we might have had an Oct born calf calving in August/Sept, now it's all August born calves calving in August/Sept. Ad lib good quality powder, weaned about 8 weeks 100 -115 kg weight. Don't use any calf concentrate, all they ever get in first winter is then 18% high fibre dairy cake and straw. Build to 3 kg/head. Turnout set stocked on not very good quality permanent pasture, 1 kg/head all summer- the milkers are usually dropped to 16% so the heifer calves are too. Loose housed Oct for Nov service. Usually bale silage 1 kg cake until Christmas, then just silage + a bit of cake a couple of days a week when we bed them down. Second summer turnout no supplementary feed, housed for calving on hay and a pre-calver bucket. Been calving at 24 months or below for about 20 years now.

The Agrarian · Oct 29, 2021

Those first fifty kilos are dear won. Personally I don't see the point of ad lib. It just stops them developing their rumen, and makes it all incredibly expensive.

Princess Pooper · Oct 30, 2021

The Agrarian said:
Those first fifty kilos are dear won. Personally I don't see the point of ad lib. It just stops them developing their rumen, and makes it all incredibly expensive.

But it also depends on your alternatives, location of calf pens and many other factors!!!! Everyone's system is different as every farm is different.

Weaning at 8 weeks we have no problems, they are already voluntarily taking a fair bit of concentrate even on ad lib powder. They go back onto bottle feeding for a week, dropped immediately down to 5 litres/day, then 2.5 litres/day then every other feed and then weaned completely. No issues with rumen development. When we used to have them on ad lib and wean at 6 weeks we did have occasional issues/

crashbox · Oct 30, 2021

TheRanger said:
Here the AA’s and dairy bulls get adlib (9-10L usually) waste whole milk for 10-12 weeks.

Waste milk... not allowed to feed anything with antibiotic withhold to calves so is there much waste milk that you could genuinely feed and still be compliant?

TheRanger said:
If you didnt have the threat of Johnes and could do the replacement heifers the same way, it would be much easier.

The Agrarian · Oct 30, 2021

Princess Pooper said:
But it also depends on your alternatives, location of calf pens and many other factors!!!! Everyone's system is different as every farm is different.

Weaning at 8 weeks we have no problems, they are already voluntarily taking a fair bit of concentrate even on ad lib powder. They go back onto bottle feeding for a week, dropped immediately down to 5 litres/day, then 2.5 litres/day then every other feed and then weaned completely. No issues with rumen development. When we used to have them on ad lib and wean at 6 weeks we did have occasional issues/

But also I expect that you have calves to be proud of. They will look mighty on adlib. Much showier than anything I rear!

Getting bulling heifers to weight

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0 %

Up to 25%

25-50%

50-75%

75-100%

100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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