Aonghusa Fahy - August 2024

The scales don't lie when assessing how the weanlings are performing.

I weighed the cows and weanlings in August, which is a requirement for SCEP, but I am interested to find out how the weanlings are performing.

While they seem to be doing well, the scales don’t lie. Overall, the 24 weanlings are averaging 270kg at 200 days of age. This represents an average daily gain of 1.12kg since birth. I would like this to be 1.2kg or higher.

The heifers are on target at 256kg but I was a little bit disappointed with the bulls. They averaged 276kg and I would like them to be closer to 300kg.

The ICBF weaning performance report essentially tells me if the cows are doing a good job rearing their calves.

The top-performing cows and bottom ones are identified on the report, and when I looked more closely, I could see that the majority of the bulls are out of the first calvers. This might help to explain why they are behind target.

After weighing, I have introduced meal at less than 1kg per day to start off with.

I don’t use a creep feeder, the calves are grazing ahead of the cows so I have some troughs for them. They were slow to start eating the high palatable crunch and it has taken two weeks for them to clean out the troughs.

I gave them the first shot of Bovipast and the second booster is due at the end of August.
I think it is good practice to have them covered for pneumonia before weaning. They will also get covered for IBR.

Weaning can be very stressful for both cow and calf and it is important to reduce stress as much as possible.

The forward grazing works great as they are used to the separation.

I have recently started to use the easy wean nose pads. It allows the cow and calf to stay together outside but the calf cannot suckle.

I leave them on for five days before removing and then fully separating the weanlings from their mothers. I have moved away from weaning in the shed and have found this approach less stressful on all, including myself!

I mentioned before about purchasing a new stock bull. While I have decided not to buy one, the next big decision is what to do with the old one. He is eight years old and is showing his age. Do I feed him on and sell him? Keep him for the winter and he might mop up for one more year?

His feet are not great and another winter could be hard on him. He has been a lucky bull for me and it is hard to see him go.

I am having a farm walk on Friday, September 27, with the Teagasc Signpost team. I don’t mind groups or walks on the farm as I learn a lot from others as well. It is important to share our knowledge and information. Every day is a school day.