A review of calving at Newford

The calving season came to a close on Newford Farm on April 15, where 82% of the cows calved within the first six weeks, Michael Fagan provides an overview of how the season progressed.

A total of 91 animals were scanned in calf – 71 cows and 20 heifers. However, one of the scanned cows suffered an early embryo loss and another aborted in mid-January, leaving 89 cows to calve down in total.

Calving commenced on January 29 and the last cow calved 78 days later on April 15. 82% of the herd had calved in the first six weeks, while 100% had calved down in 12 weeks.

 Table 1: Weekly calvings at Newford

Notes: Weekly calving percentage based on 89 cows

From these calvings, there are 85 live calves on the ground and four cases of mortality were recorded; two cases have been attributed to stillbirths, one calf died shortly after being born, and one calf died two weeks after birth as the cow lay on him.

A Hideal sired heifer calf pictured with her third calving dam. Born on March 1, the calf weighed 45kg at birth with a calving score 1. 

Calving was positive with few problems, except we did find the cows were much slower to calve down this year compared to previous years. On calf birth weights, the average weight of all calves born was 45kg, with the average for bulls being 46kg and heifer calves being 43kg. Table 2 below summarises the average calf weights, calving score and average calving date over the last four years for the farm.

At this moment in time, there are no health issues to report on the farm. All calves were disbudded as appropriate and are receiving treatment for coccidiosis as they come of age. They also received the RSV/Pi3 and clostridial disease vaccinations.

Table 2: Average calf weight, calving score and calving date from Newford

This article was adapted from the Newford Herd newsletter.

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