The autumn is a busy period on dairy farms: Autumn-calving herds are preparing for calving and spring-calving herds are preparing for drying off.
For autumn-calving herds, the final preparations are being made ahead of the start of the calving season.
In fact, farms should be making their final preparations now.
Sire selection
Ahead of the autumn-calving period getting underway, now may be a good time to start looking at sires for the breeding season ahead.
Although it may seem like a long time away it is always a good idea to look at the sires that you will potentially be using during the breeding season.
When selecting sires you should ask yourself a number of questions including: What are my breeding goals?; how many replacement heifers do I need?; and will sexed semen play a role in my breeding policy?
Fodder budget
The last couple of weeks have seen an extended dry period on the majority of farms.
During this period silage had to be fed to cows, as grass growth had reduced to a crawl on many farms.
Because this dry period lasted for so long, large amounts of silage supplies were used on many farms.
This is why completing a fodder budget in the next number of weeks is important – to ensure that silage supplies are sufficient for winter.
It is much better to figure out now that you are short when it still many be possible to purchase silage, rather than later in the year or early next year when fodder may be hard to come by.
Milk recording
Spring-calving herds are approaching the end of their milking year, but before that can happen drying off needs to take place on farms.
The new regulations are now in place which means that blanket dry cow therapy can no longer take place on farms.
Because of this, having information on your cows has never been more important.
Ahead of drying off you should complete at least one milk recording to get an insight into individual cow cell counts.