Farmers are looking to produce strong, healthy, profitable animals, we know most of the development happens in the pre-weaning stage, this is an important stage that will set them up for the future.
Building strong immunity, maintaining good growth rates, high health and decreasing disease exposure are all the factors that go towards improving calf survival and rearing a calf that will be more productive in the herd. Calves thrive on routine, if there are too many changes and not enough consistency are your calves trying to tell you something?
The effect of regional weather patterns is clearly visible again this season. In areas that experienced low rainfall and high temperatures during the critical establishment and early development phase, the crop has clearly suffered. Contrast this with other parts of the country where periods of hot weather were interspersed with regular rainfall, and well-established maize crops have high yield potential. Given the variability, I advise growers to monitor their crops as we progress through September to ensure the crop is harvested at the optimum maturity.
Joe and Ro Collingborn run a very traditional dairy farm which was founded in 1910 and has virtually been a closed herd ever since. Their daughter Ceri and son-in-law Chad are partners in the business. They also run the very successful Brinkworth Dairy, using a proportion of the farm’s milk, which produces artisan cheese, butter, kefir, yoghurt and ice cream, as well as a milk round. The rest is sold to First Milk.
Lungworm disease in cattle is caused by the Dictyocaulus viviparus parasite, and is normally seen in mid to late summer, although infections can start as early as July. Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health is urging cattle producers to lessen the risk of disease outbreaks by proactively managing pasture larvae levels throughout the grazing season and using an appropriate disease control programme.
Cattle may gain some immunity to lungworm either through vaccination before turnout, or through low level exposure at grass. However, this immunity can be short lived and if natural boosting does not occur during the grazing season, animals may be susceptible to disease when larvae populations on the pasture rapidly increase.
The Sustainable Agriculture Award, which honours farmers that go above and above for the environment and their local community, is being sponsored by Wynnstay and NFU Cymru.
We are proudly sponsoring this award which recognises the exceptional contribution Welsh farming firms make to the country's economy, ecology, social life, and cultural heritage.
Small mistakes with harvest management can lead to costly results. Getting the details right at this stage will help to ensure all the resource that has been invested in growing the crop, doesn't go to waste!
Many horses enjoy nibbling on the hedgerow that surrounds their paddock, and when out for a more leisurely hack, they may try to sneakily grab some cow parsley from the verge. Hedgerow haynets, which combine or supplement the standard forage feed with hedgerow plants for horses, are a common trend in which this diversity is replicated for the stabled horse. The benefits of bringing the outdoors inside include promoting foraging behaviour, environmental enrichment, and dietary variety.
Over the past year dairy commodity markets have shown unprecedented volatility, and we have experienced some ingredients, such as skimmed milk powder and sweet whey powder, reaching historically high levels. This coupled with increasing vegetable oil prices mean that the cost of calf milk replacer (CMR) has continued to rise, which inevitably adds cost to calf rearing systems.
Problems in calf buildings usually are due to imbalances in one or more of these five separate factors; Moisture, Fresh Air, Air Speed, Temperature and Hygiene.
