SHARING OPTIONS:
Concentrate supplementation can be used strategically to bridge the nutritional gap where grass supplies are tight. \ Philip Doyle
Weather challenges
Rainfall over the last 48 hours has been very variable depending on location. Marginal lands which were just starting to dry are back to square one and this is further delaying fertiliser applications whereas there was a good opportunity to apply fertiliser on drier lands which many producers availed of over the last week.
Grass utilisation had improved significantly but is likely to dip again. This will mean a return to practices such as supplementing ewes with lambs at foot and conserving grass supplies where there are signs of a potential deficit. With days getting longer, the situation can turn quickly but you will still need to be careful and take appropriate actions to ensure you remain in a good position.
Lely has said it sees reliance on the Vector’s continued growth going forward.
The one-thousandth Lely Vector left the company s production line on Tuesday, having doubled production of the system in the past three years.
The Vector feeding system is now used in 31 countries on a wide variety of dairy and beef cattle farms.
“Over the past decade, we have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience with automatic feeding,” product manager feeding at Lely International Jelmer Ham has said.
“We listened to our customers, conducted research and tried new things. In doing so, we relied on proven principles of automatic feeding and improved a large part of the system.”
SHARING OPTIONS:
While a few cases of bloat are not uncommon in dairy-beef calves, if it is more prevalent on farm you need to consider feeding consistency and feeding hygiene.
While buying for the programme remains slow due to high calf prices, some calves continue to arrive at the demonstration farm.
These calves are coming directly from farms in close proximity to the demo farm at John Hally’s in Cashel, Co Tipperary, so there is no need to feed an electrolyte on arrival as journey time is minimal.
John has noticed a few calves with bloat issues over the past week to 10 days.
What to feed
Low-fat milk (It s okay to switch to low-fat or nonfat milk once your child is older than 2, but check with your child s doctor if you have questions.)
Other dairy products (diced or grated cheese, low-fat yogurt, cottage cheese, pudding)
Iron-fortified cereals (oats, barley, wheat, mixed cereals)
Other grains (whole wheat bread and crackers, bagel pieces, pretzels, ready-to-eat cereal, pasta, rice)
Fruits (sliced fresh or canned)
Dried fruit, soaked until soft to prevent choking (apples, apricots, peaches, pears, dates, pitted prunes)
Vegetables (a variety cut in small pieces and cooked well)
Protein (eggs, beans, thinly spread peanut butter, small pieces of meat, poultry, boneless fish, or tofu)