COWS
- Facial eczema season is upon us and most areas have spore counts above 100,000 (see Spore Counts | Vetora). As covers are very low, stock are grazing very close to the ground so maintain prevention with Zinc supplementation or fungicides. Young stock at grazing will need ongoing protection with King Country spore counts up to 350,000 at the moment.
- Spore counting on your property gives you the best indication of your current facial eczema risk.
- RVM, milk quality, and Animal Health Plan consults are starting now. Again, we will be asking anyone buying dry cow or teatseal to sign a consent form, irrespective of whether you’re inserting it yourself or getting us to do it. This helps us make the complaince paperwork easy for you.
- Fonterra Co-operative Difference Animal Wellbeing Plan – can be done with your RVM consult but you will need to allow extra time.
- Herd Lepto vaccinations are under way. If fitting it in before dry-off is important for you, please book it in soon.
- Cull Cow mineral check on livers – Don’t forget that if you are sending cull cows to the works, you can request mineral liver checks. A minimum of five cows is needed to get a representative sample and a meaningful result. Remember to send the completed form with the cows on the truck. Late in February we emailed you a liver works form, this is also on our Vetora App under Forms.
- Balance your maize – remember to add the right amounts of calcium, magnesium and salt to your maize being fed to milkers. Call us if you need help working it out, or talk to us about the Vetora Maize Balancer.
- Dry off light conditioned early calvers so they have enough time to put weight on before calving. It’s poor economy to milk them to the bitter end and have them calve light next season!
HEIFERS
- End of pregnancy testing – review any high rates & perform testing to find out & fix any problems before next year.
- Keep the feed up, and contact graziers to have a plan to buy in extra to keep them growing as feed is short – make sure they come home big and beautiful.
- Lepto boost as required to tie in with the herd’s annual vaccinations.
- Autumn Drench – worm numbers have been fairly low with the dry summer, but when rain comes we can expect a worm explosion!
CALVES
- Autumn calves due for disbudding soon – as well as BVD/DNA testing & 5 in 1 vaccination. Book in now & plan to do it together if needed, as it’s often easier while they’re asleep!
- Keep up with the Autumn Drenching, as per your R2’s.
- Top up any Zinc Boluses as needed (you’ll have got 6 weeks out of the first Faceguard).
- Ensure calves are well-fed to keep up the growth rates.
We are looking forward to catching up with everyone soon during RVM consults!
