Cow BCS and Preparing for Winter

The greater majority of herds which we see going off farm on a winter grazing contract are budgeted on cows being offered a standard 14kgDM/cow day.  Is this figure relevant to what your herd requires to meet target at calving?  If they will need more can your grazier accommodate the number of cows you plan to send?

• 1 BCS gain in a 480kg dry cow will require 2100MJME over and above maintenance and pregnancy requirements.
• Therefore the difference between what a BCS 4.0 cow and a BCS 5.0 cow are offered over a 60 day dry period is about 240kgDM (or 4kgDM/day).

Our practice operates a comprehensive BCSing service whereby individual animals can be scored and with due to calve dates factored in calculate daily energy requirements to reach targets over the winter.

If performed in April, light cows can be identified for preferential feeding, OAD milking or staggered dry off depending on your system before cows are dried off.  The big advantage of doing this is that cows can be wintered in mobs based on due to calve date and not BCS as the herd profile is fairly even before dry off.

Reminders in February

Pink Eye 

The practice is seeing an increasing number of cases of Pinkeye. This is a contagious disease of calves spread primarily by close contact with infected animals and by flies. Vaccination with Piliguard can be a cost effective control method although vaccination must be given prior to disease occurring. In the affected animals topical ointments or sub-conjunctive injections with appropriate antibiotics are usually effective in curing the affected animals.

Excede LA Meat Withholding Times

Just a reminder that while the milk WHP for Exceed LA for cattle is NIL, the meat WHP for cattle is 14 days if injected subcutaneously at the base of the ear, or 56 days if injected subcutaneously in the anterior half of the neck.

Cepravin Milk Quality Competition Winners'

In conjunction with MSD (the manufacturers of Cepravin) we have just run our fourth competition for Milk Quality Production . Eligible entrants were those clients enrolled in infovet. (This season we also requested Oceania suppliers to submit their BMSCC as there are still technical issues linking data to infovet). We sought the lowest five day average BMSCC as at 11th of December 2014.

Well done to the Top Three Farmers who will receive $750, $500 and $250 respectively as a voucher to use within our practice.

Last season there were eleven farmers with a BMSCC under 80, 000. This season there are 30 farmers with a BMSCC under 80, 000. This is an outstanding result and reflects the increased emphasis being placed on prevention of infection especially around calving. Congratulations to you all.

Leptocred

It is that time of the year again when we need to start thinking about Leptospirosis control of your farm. Many of our clients are now part of The Veterinary Centre 'Leptocred' Programme.

It is vital for the dairy industry that we continue to have a robust programme that strengthens Leptospirosis protection and at the same time allows flexibility with vaccine use.

The annual reaccreditation consult is an essential part of this process. It is also a pertinent time to take a step back and look at Leptospirosis management on your farm and throughout the dairy industry.

We require all existing Leptocred officers to make a time to sit down with one of our vets for their 2014 audit and reaccreditation for 2015. We would like to get these consults completed before Christmas as once we reach January and February our workload increases significantly with early pregnancy testing.

Coccidiosis

Recently we have seen a number of  cases of coccidia. Coccidiosis is caused by a parasitic bug, it results in a bloody scour which is seen in calves greater than 3 weeks of age up to a few months of age. Affected calves often continuously strain to defaecate. The percentage of a mob affected can be very high as can the mortality rate. Calves which survive a severe infection will have significant checks in growth. Full recoveries can take over a month..

Coccidia are resilient bugs. Most calf meals contain coccidiostats (these are not protective until calves are eating over a kg/day). Treatment can be made with Baycox C which is a single oral drench or daily with Deccox powder mixed in milk for a period of a week.