How To Survive Calving
Eight weeks in to our twelve weeks of calving and there are just a handful of cows left to calve. Half of the heifer calves are on once a day feeds and the youngest ones will soon be too. The calving book- which records all births on paper before they are uploaded to an app- has taken ten days to fill the last page of twenty calves. A few weeks ago the beef calf shed was packed with calves and it took an age to feed them, bed them down, and make sure each pen had water and concentrate feed. Now there are just two pens to feed, and our calf rearers have started clearing out the rest.
At this point its easy to almost forget how hectic things were at the start of March. Our calf rearing team didn’t start full time until a few weeks in to calving, so I was juggling calf rearing with working a full time job, finishing off a big mobility scoring contract, starting my Nuffield report, and writing features. After a month away (travelling on my final Nuffield trip) I was also keen to get back on my horse and start competing again in the face of new qualification periods for various championships. Now all that is a faint memory and our immediate thoughts are focussed on the next season; breeding.
Last week we trimmed cow tails and I Metrichecked the herd- using a rubber cup to check uterine secretions for signs of infection- for the vet to treat any cows that need it. Soon we will paint every cow up with tailpaint and any not showing signs of oestrus will also be checked by the vet. The calf marquee comes down at the end of April and the calves will be turned out and later weaned. The pit that was covered by the marquee and full of calves will instead be filled with silage.
Every year we come to the start of calving and frantically pull together everything we need for the season, but as we sit having just lives through it I’m going to share some of my advice on how to survive- I won’t go as far as say “thrive”- this time of the year.
Protocols
One of the best things we’ve ever done is have a written calf management policy. Every farmer will have a “protocol”- how they intend to manage their calves- but unless you’re working on your own its really difficult to make sure that everyone is doing the same thing unless its written down and discussed. This season we had three calf rearers (two are a mother and daughter and work together) coming in to the farm, I work every Thursday morning and cover absences, and F gets involved anytime I can’t cover or I need help to finish before my paid job starts. To make sure that we all know what’s going on we start every calving season with a meeting (this year over supper) where we go through the protocol and make sure that everyone understands it and owns it. We also include team members who don’t work directly with calves and go over management of colostrum and Johne’s milk so that calves get the correct milk. Everyone leaves with a copy of the protocol so that they can refer to it if there’s ever any confusion e.g. about minimum Brix percentages for colostrum or how much milk powder to feed per calf. We also have a whatsapp group which works well because everybody can read the messages and we can share photos.
Food
Every year I have big plans about batch cooking through January and stocking the freezer for calving. We did do it one year but found that everything had been eaten by mid point calving (two weeks in). This year I made big meals in the slow cooker every chance I got and froze leftovers- it was less hassle than deliberately cooking for the freezer and has kept us going through the season. I also recommend baking a cake- or getting someone else to bake you a cake- in any time off. There aren’t many stresses that a piece of cake won’t relieve.
Lamb Feeder
This is a tip I picked up from a previous calf rearer who sadly couldn’t work with us this season. When a calf is reluctant to drink from a bottle using a lamb feeder with its smaller, softer teat can be more appealing. The only drawback is that the bottles only hold about 500ml so you are constantly stopping to refill the bottle and interrupting the calf’s flow, but on the plus side they are lighter than a full calf bottle.
Whiteboards
For the first time we put a small whiteboard on every pen of calves. On the board we wrote the ear tag number of each calf in the pen, and then used the board to tick off colostrum feeds and indicate whether the calf was drinking from the group teat feeder, an individual speedy feeder, or a lamb bottle. It’s a quicker way to communicate than typing it all out into the whatsapp group and means that anyone going in to the shed instantly knows what’s going on with each group. My improvement for next year would be to have bigger boards so that the calves’ names can also be added.
Enjoy It!
In the depths of calving- where the cows were still in because it was so wet, coats couldn’t dry in time, the beef calf shed was full, and the conditions meant we were anxiously waiting for a health crisis in the calves while managing on about five hours sleep per night- this was something I tried to keep remembering; ENJOY IT. Calves are super cute, introducing heifers to the herd is the culmination of two years’ hard work, and getting cows out to graze is one of the highlights of the year. Every now and again pause to think how incredible it is that a calf will stand up on shaky deer legs minutes after being born, or reflect on what a privilege it is to bring a new life into the world. I find that calves grow up very fast, and unless you stop and watch their little tails swishing while guzzling milk, they’ll be weaned and it’s another year before you get the chance again.
