Does night-time feeding reduce night-time calvings?
Some farmers may be implementing a feeding strategy where silage is restricted to suckler cows during daylight hours, instead being offered at night time, to reduce the incidence of night-time calvings.
However, the implementation of such a strategy is no guarantee of reducing the number of suckler cows calving during night-time hours, Teagasc vet John Donlon told Catherine Egan, host of the Beef Edge, on a recent episode of the beef farmer targeted podcast.
John said: “There's a lot of talk about night-time feeding and does that mean that cows are more likely to calve during the day.
“The scientific literature on it isn't particularly conclusive; some work has maybe found that it is associated with more calvings during the day, but others haven't found it. Here in Grange, we’ve looked at the distribution of calving and it's kind of equally distributed across the day, there's no particular peaks and troughs.”
If people are thinking about implementing night-time feeding, John said: “The key thing to remember is you have to have adequate feed space. If you don't have enough feed space, restricting feed for cows coming into late pregnancy isn't advisable at all.
“These cows need to be able to eat when they want to eat, especially if we're only feeding them at night. If we don't have enough feed space, there's chances that some of the more timid cows might not be eating enough, so you'd want to be very careful about the implementation of night-time feeding if you are going to try it.”
John and Catherine also discussed the technologies that are beneficial and helpful when calving suckler cows this spring, with John adding: “I think cameras and cow-mounted devices that’ll notify you of calving are very, very useful.
“One of the key things about cows when they’re calving, they like to be isolated from the group. They’d like to be able to know that there’s cows nearby. But, in general, disturbing them around calving will mean that they’ll take longer to calve.
“The likes of a calving camera, where you can just look at the cow and she doesn't even know that she's being watched will make her more likely to calve without complications. The aids like that are great for the farmer, but they’re also great for the cow when making her feel more at ease.”
Listen into the podcast below where John gives further details on managing the suckler cow at calving, including when to intervene, advice on managing difficult calvings and the importance of adequate nutrition in the lead up to calving.
The above podcast was part one of a two-part series. In part two, John Donlon gave advice and tips for caring for the new born calf. John outlined the best practice for when the calf is just born such as feeding colostrum and care of the navel. He also described the key tips when stomach tubing a calf.
Listen in to part two below: