Expectant mother and inexperienced keeper

[victorfirst]

Hi Folks

Calves have been weaned off cows and they are due to calve end of march. What should i be doing now. What feed and licks and should i dose with anything.

Views please

[Duncan MacIntyre]

This is more complicated than it sounds, it really needs someone who is knowledgeable and also knows your own herd and ground and available feeding - the sort of thing your vet should be able to help you with - a lot of it would be covered by a herd health and welfare plan such as available through your vet and www.myhealthyherd.com

Duncan

[Rob R]

The third trimester is the most important time for foetal growth, so ensure that they have a decent, but not too good forage, with decent sugar levels, from now on. If the forage isn't great, top it up with molasses or a Crystalyx bucket.

Ours just have a general mineral supplement but we pay particular attention to keeping it topped up around this time. Ensure plenty of feeder space to avoid those lower down the pecking order getting pushed out or separate the vulnerable group if space is tight (probably not necessary if you have fewer than 10 in the group).

As Duncan says though, there are other variables then can be covered in a forum post, such as particular excesses/deficiencies for your ground/situation (in the shadow of Drax copper def/molybdenum excess is the one to watch out for for us) - what your neighbours are doing is often a good indication! (bearing in mind their timings and animals, of course)

[Broomcroft]

Calves have been weaned off cows and they are due to calve end of march. What should i be doing now. What feed and licks and should i dose with anything.

We keep it fairly simple, and all we've ever done is give them good quality hay, silage/haylage (ad-lib). And we also give them special pre-calver licks ("Lifeline" I think). I can't recall what's special about the licks, something to do with not too much calcium and more mag? Don't know, sorry, but they are specially for calvers. Can't say you need them, just that we give them.

After they've calved, they MAY need a bit more help, i.e. some feed. But some do, some don't.

Are they looking good? Some people worm their cattle but we just do faecal egg counts, our vet does them, then worm as necessary which is usually never. It's horrendously wet here, is fluke a possible problem? Maybe ask your vet?

[Louisa Gidney]

My cows are due from Feb. They came in the barn the week before Christmas into individual pens. They get hay twice a day, bedding once a day, scoop of sugar beet pellets once a day, water. There's a high energy lick bucket going round for a couple of days in each pen. System has worked for me for 25+ years.

[victorfirst]

Thanks all for replys. Will speak to vet and will the dose for fluke.

Cheers for the info