Managing weanlings and cows until turnout to grass

The recent heavy rainfalls during the month of February has left land that more challenging for farmers to start grazing cows or weanlings – especially on heavier soils.

With good dry spells experienced in recent days – the hope is that first few weeks of March will be kind to farmers in terms of weather conditions and land will become easier to work with.

A question that suckler and beef farmers may be asking themselves is how to take care and feeding their cattle before they take the plunge of getting them out to spring grass.

Fortunately, the fodder situation on a number of farms is holding strong – with plenty of supplies still available.

Feeding weanlings

The aim when turning weanlings out to grass this spring is to maximise their compensatory growth as much as possible. This will reduce the need for excess feeding of concentrates and reduce expenses somewhat.

She advised that once the weanlings are thriving and achieving this weight target, concentrates could be withdrawn for a month before turnout.

Calved cows

If a cow has a BCS of 2.5 or over, then feeding good quality silage, >70% dry matter digestibility (DMD), should suffice until the cow is allowed out to pasture.

If the quality of silage is poor (<68%DMD), then concentrate feeding of 1-2kg is necessary, according to Teagasc.

Teagasc also recommends that cows with a BCS of less than 2.5, or is in poor condition, are fed good/moderate quality silage along with 2-3kg. This will be required until turnout.

Turning the attention to first-time calvers, the recommendation is to feed 1-2kg of meal along with good quality silage. Catherine highlighted if poor quality silage being fed to these females will require 2-3kg of meal supplemented into her diet.

A good management tip is to keep an eye on the cows at feeding and be watchful of bullying on younger cows, shy cows or lame cows. These may need to be removed from the pen in order to provide them with extra care.

Cows waiting to calve

If some cows are not calving until later on in March or April, keeping an eye on the body conditional score (BCS) of these cows is one of the most important management tips.

Last month, Aidan Murray from Teagasc had highlighted that you “cannot starve calving difficulty out of cows and heifers“.

The main focus will be on thin cows (below a BCS of 2.5) and ensuring they will need an extra bit of care over the next few weeks.

Catherine recommended feeding these cows good quality silage of 70 DMD, along with 1 to 2kg of concentrates to help improve condition.

On the other hand if a cow is in too good of an order (above BCS of 3.0) pre-calving, they may need to have their diets restricted as this additional BCS may lead to difficulties at calving.

Mineral supplementation

Both cows that have not yet calved and cows that are calved down will require levels of mineral supplementation this spring.

Pre-calving minerals should be ideally fed to cows at least four to six weeks prior to calving down.

There are four important elements that need to be supplemented pre-calving which include magnesium (mg), phosphorus (P), selenium (Se) and iodine (I).

Following this, farmers also need to keep an eye on the level of other trace elements and vitamins being fed.

During the tetany high risk period, magnesium (mg) must be supplied.

According to Teagasc, cows need a supplement of 30g of Mg (or 60g of calcined magnesite) during the high risk period.