Calves have been weaned off milk and have gone out to grass on many dairy-beef farms across the country by now.
Managing this transition effectively is essential to ensure continued good performance and weight gain from calves in a dairy calf to beef operation.
The transition from the shed out to the field is a significant change for calves and they should be closely monitored after turnout.
Getting calves used to fences will be the first challenge at turnout, but another issue which has become more common in recent years, is summer scour in calves.
Agriland recently caught up with ABP Food Group’s Advantage Beef Programme farm liaison team leader, Amie Coonan, to hear how farmers involved in the processors’ sustainability initiative are managing to mitigate the risk of a summer scour outbreak, avoiding the risk of the subsequent ill thrift and loss in performance caused by the disease.
She explained: “Summer scour syndrome is a relatively new issue on farms causing the sudden onset of scour, mouth ulceration, weight loss, blindness and even death in calves.”
The farm liaison team leader offered some advice on preventing outbreaks of summer scour in calves.
She explained that firstly, farmers should ensure calves have been weaned of milk properly and are confidently eating upwards on 2kg of concentrates/head/day.
Calves should also be consuming adequate levels of roughage, such as straw or hay, before being weaned off milk.
Once milk has been removed from the calf diet, calves should be kept indoors for one to two weeks post-weaning to ensure they have adjusted to their new diet.
Where possible, farmers should feed calves their concentrates twice-a-day for a few weeks post-turnout to allow calves to be more closely monitored after the transition to grass.
As well as continuing to feed concentrates, farmers should also ensure high levels of roughage and fibre remain in the calf diet at grass.
The farm liaison team leader said: “Let calves onto stemmy, older grasses for a few weeks post turn out.
“Calves are selective grazers, so will eat the top section of grass which has the highest level of sugars and nitrogen and lowest levels of fibre.
“Young calves consuming high levels of lush grass will cause an imbalance in rumen pH, poor digestion and therefore scour.”
“Strip wires can be used to encourage calves to graze stem content along with the lush leaf content. Avoid letting calves onto swards that recently received fertiliser.”
She added that: “Concentrates are now available from various merchants and co-ops with additives to aid rumination, such as buffers and yeasts to maintain good gut bacteria levels.”
If scour or setbacks are seen in calves, farmers should consult their vet and consider taking a dung sample from the calves to rule out coccidiosis/heavy worm burden.