Farmer Focus: I blame myself for the vaccination slip

At the beginning of July, we were about six weeks post-calving, or halfway through. We have a summer calving bias of heifers born in the summer, with beef at either end of that period and nothing born in February.

We don’t have the ambition to be a tight block calving herd, but we have found that having the heifers all born within four months of each other makes raising them much easier.

At least it would be okay if I hadn’t forgotten a big part of the vaccination program, namely the rotovirus vaccine.

See also: Advice on weaning and complementary feeding of nursing calves

About the Author

Tom Hildreth

Livestock Farmer Focus writer Tom Hildreth and his family grow grass and corn for the herd of 130 genomically tested 11,000 liter Holstein cows near York that supply Arla. The Hildreths run a cafe, ice cream business and milk vending machine on the farm.

This turned the pleasant job of calf feeding into a nightmare of sad calves, rehydration treatment and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

About half of the heifers had symptoms, but the beef calves didn’t suffer at all, and I don’t know why.

Veal calves spend their first two weeks in a stone-floored shed that houses young heifers in the fall and winter.

In contrast, heifers spend the first weeks of their lives in clean, individual pens, then up to 12 weeks in purpose-built pens with concrete floors and walls that have been washed, disinfected and left for several month.

There’s nothing like an outbreak of something that’s easily preventable to ensure surveillance isn’t repeated.

Luckily I think we’re done with that now and four weeks ago we started vaccinating again, so anything that’s calved in the last two weeks has the antibodies.

It was a good grass growing year for us. We took the first cut a bit wet, but there was plenty of rain at the start of the regrowth to provide a good second cut, which filled another clamp.

Four weeks of regrowth feels like a promising third cut.

The corn was knee high on July 1st so that’s a long way off except for about an acre which didn’t germinate (due to dry conditions) and was later ripped up by crows when it emerged towards the end of June.

This year again, we welcomed 2,500 visitors for Open Farm Sunday.

I’m always amazed at how many people show up, but with the promise of a sit in tractors and a combine harvester, plus the shearing of cows, lambs and sheep, I can’t blame them .