Cows, Calves, and Creep Areas.

farmboy1130

I would like to get some advice; my cows calve from early march to the end of April each year. when a cow is close to calving, i move her from the slats in to a straw bedded shed, where i have a pin for that cow. when the cow calves, i keep her there until i think the weather is good enough to let her and the calf out to a paddock, which could be a week, could be three weeks, maybe even a month sometimes ( ya, i know i am crazy! costing me a fortune in straw! ). with straw being dear and getting dearer, i can no longer afford to use this costly system. what i am looking to do in the forthcoming years is expand cow numbers, and have cows calving from January- march. which will enable me to get more work done on the land in the spring time, and get the cows and calves out to grass earlier. so i need to get some advice about how you lads manage the housing of cows and calves after they calve; i have a particular interest in ; the tricks and tips of using a creep area system for cows and calves. I have a back passage in the slatted shed, so it wouldn't be a big problem to setup a creep area system. my big concerns about this system is that; would cows be constantly getting their bags dirty resulting in calves refusing to suck the dirty quarters of the cow, the cow then ending up with maybe mastitis or e-coli mastitis ? another concern would be calves getting sick with scour sucking dirty tits.etc. would you have to sweep down the slats a few times a day ? constantly feeling their bags for hard quarters ? would you have to be constantly washing cows bags ? also,in your experience what is the best scour vaccination to give to cows for their calves before they calve ? thank you, your advice would be greatly appreciated.

ootbitb

Leave them on straw for a week then calf in creep area and cow on slats.

Let calves into cows to suck twice a day. Clean slats with a shovel twice daily.

Feed some straw/hay if dung is soft.

Bonus is cows will come into heat quicker with this method making compact calving possible.

49801

ootbitb wrote: »

Leave them on straw for a week then calf in creep area and cow on slats.

Let calves into cows to suck twice a day. Clean slats with a shovel twice daily.

Feed some straw/hay if dung is soft.

Bonus is cows will come into heat quicker with this method making compact calving possible.

+1
Calves are strong enough for slats and creep area after a week or ten days

Bleating Lamb

Another big advantage to letting baby calves out to suck is you know that they are all sucking their own mothers....and not getting robbed which happens in free access system.Is more time consuming but worth it.

Black Smoke

49801 wrote: »

ootbitb wrote: »

Leave them on straw for a week then calf in creep area and cow on slats.

Let calves into cows to suck twice a day. Clean slats with a shovel twice daily.

Feed some straw/hay if dung is soft.

Bonus is cows will come into heat quicker with this method making compact calving possible.

+1
Calves are strong enough for slats and creep area after a week or ten days

Once they are a week old they are more than strong enough to go outside. Need a middling good day to let them out. Place they goo needs to have shelter. Far safer and healthier than on slats or straw bed of bugs. I let them all out once they are a week, tagged and dehorned. Many and many a time they have seen bad weather but never a loss or a set back. Much better job!

1chippy

Black Smoke wrote: »

Once they are a week old they are more than strong enough to go outside. Need a middling good day to let them out. Place they goo needs to have shelter. Far safer and healthier than on slats or straw bed of bugs. I let them all out once they are a week, tagged and dehorned. Many and many a time they have seen bad weather but never a loss or a set back. Much better job!

You cant beat calves outside alright. but if you have thirty or forty cows with calves out by the end of feb you wont have much grazing coming on at the end of march.
the creep areas work grand. they dont have to be anything over fancy, just a safe dry clean area for them to go. with no ground draughts. we never have problems with mastitis in the early months of the year. the main issue is to keep pneumonia out.we had a bit of a spell of it this year.
We usually feed a little bit of crunch to the earliest calves and i find this leads to a lot quieter weanlings for the ones born nov/dec.

farmboy1130

ootbitb wrote: »

Leave them on straw for a week then calf in creep area and cow on slats.

Let calves into cows to suck twice a day. Clean slats with a shovel twice daily.

Feed some straw/hay if dung is soft.

Bonus is cows will come into heat quicker with this method making compact calving possible.

Thanks for the Advice, just wondering how long should I leave the calves in on the slats,to suck the cows ? I was thinking that if the calfs were hungry, they would be maybe inclined to take a big feed of milk from the cows if left on them too long, maybe resulting in a milk scour, do you have some rule of thumb for this ?

also could you tell me what feeding do you give these cows after moving them on to the creep system ? would I be giving them a restricted amount of silage ? (cheapest option for me). I would have good dry silage for them to eat. or would it be safer to keep feeding the cows just hay and bits of straw; (no silage); for a few weeks after the birth of the calf like i was doing with the old system , so as to not flush them with milk,the cows I have are fairly milky. just wondering what works for other people. Many Thanks.

49801

farmboy1130 wrote: »

Thanks for the Advice, just wondering how long should I leave the calves in on the slats,to suck the cows ? I was thinking that if the calfs were hungry, they would be maybe inclined to take a big feed of milk from the cows if left on them too long, maybe resulting in a milk scour, do you have some rule of thumb for this ?

also could you tell me what feeding do you give these cows after moving them on to the creep system ? would I be giving them a restricted amount of silage ? (cheapest option for me). I would have good dry silage for them to eat. or would it be safer to keep feeding the cows just hay and bits of straw; (no silage); for a few weeks after the birth of the calf like i was doing with the old system , so as to not flush them with milk,the cows I have are fairly milky. just wondering what works for other people. Many Thanks.

we just leave the calves have free access as am (supposedly) part time. Restricting the calves is supposed to be a good job alright though to get the cow cycling again. As soon as the calf cant get any more off the cow put them back to the creep. They should train to it fairly quickly if you have a nice dry creep area. keep a small trough of calf meal in there from day 1 with a water source. Whole job should only take a half hour to 3/4hr twice a day. Even better again if you can give the calves access to a field by day in good weather.

As soon as cows are calved we give them as much silage as they want to eat. no harm to give them a couple of kgs of a meal either.

Figerty

I put the cow back in to the slat after about a week, sometimes less if there are other calves coming on. Calves come are free to go in and out to the cows and suck.
I haven't had a with scour in years as it is a closed herd and since using a slatted shed. One of my neighbours got roasted with scours this year. Pneumonia isn't a problem either as the shed is well ventilated. I let the calves roam an enclosed yard with a grass paddock and the pick away at silage.

If I let the cows out as they calve, I wouldn't have grass later in the year.