Dairy calves/weinlings/runners

FarmerBrowne

Am looking for a bit of advice, over the last few months I purchased mainly daily cows offspring , these would be angus, black white heads, red white heads, charolais, etc. They were out on grass and were doing well, they were getting about a kilo of meal and this was gradually reduced, they are getting no meal now. They are indoors now and on reseeded silage baled beginning of June, it's damp but not wet, I have been weighing them consistently and recently they have stopped thriving, they were dosed with levafas diamond a month ago but are beginning to cough again and a few of them have snotty noses.

So questions are will I go again with levafas diamonds?

Would I be better mix in hay with the silage to see do they start thriving again or will it have to be meal? I don't want them to do a massive thrive for the winter as I want to benefit from compensatory growth early spring but I would like to keep them ticking over doing about 3-4 kilos a week.

They are about 200kg on average weight by the way, heifers and bulls.

Thanks for reading, any advice would be great.

patsy_mccabe

Hard to beat meal this time of year for young stock. I always start feeding some from early Sept to my suckler calves. I think the quality of grass gets very poor at this time of year. Its not just the feeding in the meal, but I think it's dryness compensates for the wetness of the grass. It stops calves from scouring.

welton john

1-1.5 kg of 19% meal would be money well spent on them, I presume they housed since they on silage. Hopefully this just the cause of coughing

tanko

Have you treated them for lungworms? Dont think levafas diamond is effective against them.
I'd give them levicide injection and something like paramectin a month later.

orm0nd

looks like they might have a touch of virus,

did you vaccinate against any of the pneumonia's ?

no matter how good your fodder is, growing stock in their first winter will always benefit from 1-2 kgs of 18-20 % meal supplement

Edit : sorry, didn't see welton john's post b4 I replied

FarmerBrowne

They all got a shot of nuflor and animec super.

Isnt levafas diamonds supposed to cure lungworm? I thought I read it on the box.

White Clover

FarmerBrowne wrote: »

They all got a shot of nuflor and animec super.

Isnt levafas diamonds supposed to cure lungworm? I thought I read it on the box.

No, as tanko said, levafas diamond is a poor enough wormer.

Hard Knocks

White Clover wrote: »

No, as tanko said, levafas diamond is a poor enough wormer.

As mentioned above it could be lungworms or virus.
Maybe send off a blood & dung sample & get checked to get a more accurate result.
Don't leave any longer as a casualty is costly

larthehar

tanko wrote: »

Have you treated them for lungworms? Dont think levafas diamond is effective against them.
I'd give them levicide injection and something like paramectin a month later.

+1 on levicide injection.. cheap too.. weanling need protein to grow the frame, i would get the silage tested in your coop and see what the protein is and balance overall intake to 16%.. also don.t forget minerals..

squinn2912

Good idea to get the silage tested to see what percentage of dry matter you have. If there is a sudden change in their diet and removal of meal they will empty it back out. Worms could be your issue, it's hard to know that year but with the warm and wet weather you could have anything. Our vet told us that you don't cure worms etc, you reduce and control them as best you can so it's a case of damage limitation to allow the animal to thrive. I'd get them back on a handful of meal, if you have hay or straw then a wisp of it would do good. Is the shed (think they're in?) well ventilated as well? Lighting a smoke bomb will show you where the air is going. Hope things lift soon for you.

orm0nd

larthehar wrote: »

+1 on levicide injection.. cheap too.. weanling need protein to grow the frame, i would get the silage tested in your coop and see what the protein is and balance overall intake to 16%.. also don.t forget minerals..

Levamisole hydrochloride is 1 of the active ingredients in Levafas Diamond which has already been used,

It's a very poor quality dose to use at this time of year, as it doesn't cover type 2 ostertagia

greysides

Levamisole covers hoose but it has no persistent action.