Minerals are necessary to sustain life but you might be surprised by how many cow and calf operations are mineral deficient, especially when it comes to copper and Selenium. Here is our guide to minerals and the roles they play in keeping your livestock healthy.
With spring turnout fast approaching, it is a crucial time to be thinking about dietary magnesium and making sure that the milkers’ ration is targeted to meet the cow’s production needs.
Restore 5 + is a new mycotoxin binder for use in 2021 dairy rations, available exclusively through Wynnstay.
It is the first of its kind in the UK market, it offers complete mycotoxin binding and immune support, with 5 scientifically proven modes of action.
Colostrum is a concentrated source of nutrients, which includes fats, proteins, Immunoglobulins such as Immunoglobulin G (IgG), carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Ensuring that a newborn calf gets the correct amount of good quality colostrum as soon as possible after birth is paramount to produce a healthy calf.
With high numbers of dairy x beef calves entering the beef chain (and the current beef price not setting the world alight), it is important to consider potential finishing rations and their cost implications.
Transition cows are the next generation of milking cows in your herd, so every effort should be made to ensure that they have the best transition into milking and become profitable long-term herd members. Just letting one thing slip under the radar - such as diet, or space allocation - can unknowingly cause costly health problems later on.
An annual pattern of milk composition has been well recognized on dairy farms across the world for years, with the highest milk fat and protein concentration in milk observed during the winter and lowest occurring in the summer. This trend is manipulated solely by season, and impacts housed and grazing cows similarly. So, when we get to spring, and then turnout for some, and milk butterfats start to decline- how do we know if this is real milk fat depression or not?
Drought can cause many problems for farmers across Britain, when the hot weather pattern has broken, we are reminded of what rain is and its ability to grow grass. With this comes the possible problem of mineral deficiencies.
Of course, quantity of minerals and trace elements in grass does depend on soil type, botanical composition, fertilisation of the pasture and growth stage but weather conditions also affect this greatly.
Body Condition Score (BCS) is a subjective measurement of the amount of body fat the cow is carrying. This measurement can be taken at any time, with different scores recommended across the differing lactation stages. B with the minimum being: at calving, during early lactation, at service, during late lactation and at drying off.
In the UK, the scoring system is based on a 1-5 scale; with 1 being emaciated and 5 being obese. The scores increase in increments of 0.25. A majority of cows fall into condition scores between 2-4, with those found to be outside this range making up extreme cases. As BCS is directly related to body weight, each 0.5 BCS equates to approximately 50kg body weight. There is also a significant relationship between back fat thickness (BFT) and total body fat (TBF), as a change of 1mm of BFT is equivalent to 5kg of TBF. Therefore, 10mm of BFT equates to approximately 0.5 unit of BCS.
Grazing is about to increase as the spring approaches, making it time to think about how we use supplementary feed to make the most of grazed grass.
With grass the cheapest feed available to cows, any kind of supplementation must complement, not restrict, grazing – balancing limitations in grass to improve on farm margins.
