Are You Giving Your Dairy Replacements The Attention They Deserve?

August 2010

Dairy replacements are the future of your business, but all too often they are put in the far corner of the farm and forgot about until they are required. By this time it is too late and the full potential of these heifers could have been missed. They either calve in too small or don’t make it to second lactation or you wait for them to grow on and they are too old and difficult to get in calf.

The Cornwall Farmers 600/24 Heifer Concept has been devised to monitor the early life of heifers to ensure they are managed to their full potential. As its name suggests, the scheme is designed to enable heifers to reach an optimum weight of 600Kgs within 24 months, which is several months quicker than heifers often take to reach the herd. This earlier calving age has massive financial benefits. See table below

Age at Calving	Cost of rearing to calving	Milk from calving to 30 months	Margin over all feed	Net cost to 30 months
30 months	1200	0	0	£1200
28 months	1125	1500L	£150	£975
26 months	1050	3000L	£300	£750
24 months	975	4500L	£450	£525

To ensure heifers calve at the desired weight and size, monitoring and feeding the heifers correctly at each stage of their growth is essential. However this is very easy to do and can be done on a regular basis by doing something as simple as putting some markers on the side of the crush or race and running cattle past it and comparing these heights to your target.

The specific targets to aim for Holstein Friesians are:

350kg/124cm height at first heat at approx 12 months
420kg/130cm at bulling time at 15 months
calving at 24 months with a weight of 600kg and a height of 140cm
For smaller breeds, such as Jersey’s or Guernsey’s, the figures are proportionally lower with a target bulling weight of 65% of the adult weight.

To achieve this, the feed requirements during the various stages need to be monitored. In the first few months the emphasis is on building the rumen, creating a strong ‘engine’ in the heifer, by balancing either cow’s milk or milk powder with the correct starter feeds. Then whether a diet based on silage or straw, accurate feeding is required in respect of each stage of the heifer’s development. Especially important is the need to develop the frame of the animal while keeping the fat level down, as too much fat at this stage can cause health problems later in life; the ration is then stepped up to a rising plane of nutrition with a consistent diet bring the heifer to bulling with excellent fertility and achieving the conception rates you desire.

Cornwall Farmers have a Duchy Blend specially formulated to meet your heifers’ requirements from birth to calving.

Super Coarse Calf is designed to develop the rumen of the calf and will balance whole milk or milk replacer. It is very palatable to encourage intakes at this young age and can be fed from birth to 12 weeks of age.
Pedigree Heifer Rearer is fed from 12 weeks and is the ideal blend to follow on from coarse calf.

This 18% protein blend provides the benefits of feeding a higher protein ration, which is designed to develop greater frame and skeletal growth in dairy replacements. The blend allows heifers to be fed at a rate that gives a daily liveweight gain of up to 0.9kg/day, and will give a rising plane of nutrition through the bulling/service stage. This gives you a well developed powerful heifer calving at 24 months of age.

Most importantly she will be FIT not FAT and therefore helps to reduce calving problems, which can lead to a wide range of all-round benefits: a fitter, healthier animal that provides increased income during its lifetime and allows greater chance of competing/thriving when she joins the main herd.

Pedigree Heifer Rearer Blend supports high growth rates to ensure:

Target height and weights are met
Optimum fertility for high pregnancy rate to first service
Entry into herd at optimum time
Heifer is strong enough to compete in the herd

Cornwall Farmers provides high quality feeds in its Pinnacle and Duchy Blends ranges to take care of all the feeding requirements, plus a nutritional team to provide any advice throughout the heifer’s development and introduction into the herd. We can also put together a specific heifer rearing plan with Height and weight targets to ensure your heifers start making you money sooner.

“The financial benefits of the scheme can add up to a considerable income, or a real loss if animals are left behind,” says Tom Mann, Duchy Blends Manager at Cornwall Farmers. “Every month gained makes a real difference in respect of loss in potential milk yield and the feed costs involved. Not forgetting the fewer number of replacements being carried at any one time”.

Have you got a heifer rearing plan? For further details about the 600/12 Heifer Concept and heifer targets please talk to Cornwall Farmers by contacting: Tom Mann on 07901 854477; Dr Robin Hawkey on 07770 816581, Andy Hawken on 07901 854463 or Matthew Jenkin on 07770 598296