Here We Go

It’s almost that time of year. We’ve been prepping for it and our time for preparation is about over. By next week I expect to have some calves on the ground. We have kept the first calf heifers on a feeding ground away from the calving shed to keep the calving area as clean as possible, but this week we will bring them to the shed so we can watch them more closely and get them into the shed if we want.

It looks like we are going to get more snow tonight and we already have quite a bit. We have been pushing snow with the tractors to clear areas for the calves to lay out of the snow. We're stocked up on calving supplies and we think we are about ready. Of course, that may go right out the window as soon as we are in the middle of calving. Hopefully, the weather is decent after this storm tonight and the newborn calves don’t have to be born in super cold weather.

In the picture above, you may notice the tubs that are on the right. Over the past few years we have been feeding Bio-MOS to help with gut health and prevent scours in calves born to our first calf heifers. Bio-MOS is an Alltech product designed for gastrointestinal health (Click here to learn more about Bio-MOS). We have been just feeding that to them through their normal mineral program. This year we added Crystalyx tubs into the mix to try to get them more energy as well as the Bio-MOS. Since these young cows are still growing, they provide less colostrum to the newborns than a normal cow making their calves more susceptible to disease. We are hoping that our stepped up nutrition will increase colostrum production and reduce the amount of disease present creating a healthier environment for the calves. It won’t be long before we see how all of this plays out!

I may be even less consistent in blogging than usual once the heifers are in full swing, but I will try to keep you somewhat up to date on what is going on here.

by Brandon Greet