The autumn-calving season is underway on dairy farms and the management of freshly calved cows during these first few weeks of the lactation is vital.
During the first few weeks cows are in a transition period, which is the period three weeks pre-calving and three weeks post-calving.
During this period freshly calved dairy cows faces many physiological challenges.
Feeding
Wet weather is hampering grazing in many areas at present, but where possible, grass should be a part of the diet in winter milk cows.
Unlike their spring-calving counterparts, autumn-calving cows are building up for their lactation when the feed value of grass is low.
Although setting up the farm is important, feeding too much low-dry-matter (DM) grass to autumn calvers may cause more harm than good.
In some cases, cows will not be able to eat enough grass to fill themselves due to the DM of grass.
Therefore, autumn-calving cows should be offered a high-DM forage to maximise dry matter intake (DMI) in order to minimise body condition score (BCS) loss and negative energy balance.
Freshly calved cows will also have a lower DMI starting at 10-12kg of DM, due to the restriction on rumen capacity.
Intake will increase by 0.75–1kg DM/week as the rumen expands, but it will take at least six to eight weeks to reach maximum intake after calving.
Management of cows during this period is vital to slowly build cows up to levels of feeding and to avoid issues with negative energy balance.
Freshly calved cows
During this period, cows need to be watched closely, as issues such as displaced abomasum can often appear during this period.
Cows that are off their feed, have reduce milk yields or have had an issue around calving need to be checked by a vet.
All of these are signs that there may be a issue going on with a cow that needs to be checked.
Getting the management of cows right during this period is extremely important, as setbacks at this stage will have an impact on production.