Cows

The art of caring for new mums

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New mums deserve TLC courtesy of our researchers

There’s a real art and a science to looking after cows in the lead-up to, and just after, calving. As you can imagine, cows need an incredible amount of calcium to both grow their calves and to produce milk.

You’d think that adding extra calcium in their diets would be a good idea, wouldn’t you? Well, actually vets tell us that adding calcium is one of the worst things you can do to a cow that’s about to calve. It makes her much more likely to suffer from a life-threatening disorder called “milk fever”, where the body cannot produce enough calcium to power her muscles (including the heart).

Instead, we must choose feeds that encourage the cow’s body to draw calcium from her bones and that will help her adjust to the diet she’ll receive as a member of the milking herd. If we don’t get the feeding regime right during the two to three weeks before calving, cows are more likely to have trouble calving, develop lameness, lose weight, produce less milk and get sick with mastitis.

Ironically, too much grass at this time also spells big trouble. It generally has a high dietary cation anion difference (DCAD), which doesn’t help get precious calcium into the bloodstream. That’s why cows in our calving paddock have access to short but clean grass, anion salts in their drinking water, cereal hay and half the ration of grain they’ll get in the dairy. They’re too precious to treat with any less TLC.

Cycle of life adapts to a new climate

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The calves are offered a special treat


Whether you call it climate variability or climate change, one thing’s for sure: we’re dealing with very different weather patterns in our part of Gippsland. The summers are hotter and tougher. The dryness now often begins in November and sometimes stretches into May. On the other hand, winter is warmer and grass grows far better in June and July than ever before.

This has fundamentally changed the farm, right down to the cycle of life. Instead of planning the calving season to begin in mid-July, we’ve decided to begin on April 20 this year. We’ve been surprised to see four premature calves (including twins Ella and Bella) born already – best laid plans often come undone at the hands of mother nature.

The reasoning is that we want to match the cows’ need for grass with the time when it grows best. Naturally, cows need the most energy when they produce the most milk, so we’re hoping to hit peak production in July/August/September, which is the period when the farm’s pastures are most productive under the new conditions.

The cows will have their two-month annual holiday from mid-February until calving begins in April – the time when grass is hardest to grow and when the cows’ energy needs are lessened. It will take time (two or three years) for us to get the whole herd into this pattern but it will be worth it. There will be less pressure on all of us.