Herd Tasks: Your weekly farming checklist
By To Do Being Still Benefit 40 Of Also Calvers Spring In 50 To Days Milking Will Night With From
- Once stock go indoors, clean out water troughs regularly. If cattle don’t drink they don’t eat and as a result don’t perform.
- Soil test underperforming paddocks and aim to apply lime where it is required before next season. It is the cheapest fertiliser you can buy.
- Assess first, second and third-cut silages for mould and toxins. Many of these silages are too dry and or have soil in them!
- Get calves off to the best possible start with a good supply of colostrum. Lazy drinkers should be stomach tubed, if necessary, within the first six hours. If you have vaccinated cows, then the full benefit will not be transferred to the calves if sufficient colostrum is not consumed.
- Don’t stock pens too heavily to avoid bullying of fresh cows and injury to calves. Dry sucklers, once soaked up, need to be on bare paddocks or on stronger silages just after drying off to keep control of condition.
- Driving intake in fresh autumn-calvers must be your priority to boost milk and fertility performance. Fresh cows should be indoors full-time at this point, regardless of grass availability. It offers very little to fresh cows at this point. Consistent feeding indoors is the way to achieve this as we are now heading into November, and AI season for Autumn 2025 calving will begin soon.
- Spring calvers with still 40 to 50 days of milking to do will also benefit from being in by night. It will mean they can stay out by day for longer into the winter where grass is available and weather permits.
- Establish your silage quality for these animals and supplement sufficient protein to maintain growth targets Beef Finishers.
- Ensure that any concentrates used to finish cattle are high in energy, this will require higher inclusions of cereals, so they should be high up on the label.
