Feeding regime for heifers calving @ 24 months?

Farmer Dan

Looking for some advice please.
Have heifers in calf to eby limousin bull calving end of Feb & March. First time calving them at this age. There in good condition, 500kg +.
Will be housing them next week. Waiting on silage results. What's best to feed them?
Thanks.

john mayo 10

We usually give ours easy calver nuts up to 6 weeks before calving, a pre calving bucket lick left in the pen ( which they often **** in ) and silage.

croot

I've had good results feeding oats with minerals and silage. They wouldn't be overfed but the oats seems to give them energy without making the calf bigger.

valtra2

Feed mine silage only.

High bike

croot wrote: »

I've had good results feeding oats with minerals and silage. They wouldn't be overfed but the oats seems to give them energy without making the calf bigger.

same as that

grassroot1

Silage and watch condition score Pre calver mineral at recommended rate
Fit not fat at calving

Never wrestle with pigs

As above, minerals and it's probably more important the management post calving. Look after them after calving until after breeding. Any starting to struggle pull them aside and give a few kg of nuts.

Hard Knocks

grassroot1 wrote: »

Silage and watch condition score Pre calver mineral at recommended rate
Fit not fat at calving

Would hay not be better than silage

Who2

Hard Knocks wrote: »

Would hay not be better than silage

i wouldnt feed first calvers hay pre calving ever again. it leaves them with little to no poor quality milk. All mine get silage and minerals only.

Hard Knocks

Who2 wrote: »

i wouldnt feed first calvers hay pre calving ever again. it leaves them with little to no poor quality milk. All mine get silage and minerals only.

Thanks
Had problems with big calves last year & on herd health plan the vet was suggesting instead of rationed silage to give hay.
Would alternating do?

grassroot1

We are asking a lot of a heifer to calve at 2 y.o. it is quite possible but requires set weight targets and very good management. The aim is to have a heifer with a live calf on the ground after calving.Personally I think a calf sire should be chosen with very low calving difficulty AA HE etc, give the heifer every chance to give birth naturally. There is plenty of time to use CH,LM or others for later calvings.
Hay or silage either is ok but watch condition score. Some feed oats for others its a dirty word.Once she has calved remember she is still growing, meals after calving are probably necessary at 1 kg a day. If it is possible to run 1st calvers away from the main herd for the first grazing season that would be ideal(we run them with the maiden heifers) A dose midsummer is also a good idea if she is under pressure her resistance to worms will be affected.
Heifers represent the best genetics in your herd, they must get the chance to improve your herd and they can only do that if they rear a calf and go back incalf again.

charolais0153

grassroot1 wrote: »

We are asking a lot of a heifer to calve at 2 y.o. it is quite possible but requires set weight targets and very good management. The aim is to have a heifer with a live calf on the ground after calving.Personally I think a calf sire should be chosen with very low calving difficulty AA HE etc, give the heifer every chance to give birth naturally. There is plenty of time to use CH,LM or others for later calvings.
Hay or silage either is ok but watch condition score. Some feed oats for others its a dirty word.Once she has calved remember she is still growing, meals after calving are probably necessary at 1 kg a day. If it is possible to run 1st calvers away from the main herd for the first grazing season that would be ideal(we run them with the maiden heifers) A dose midsummer is also a good idea if she is under pressure her resistance to worms will be affected.
Heifers represent the best genetics in your herd, they must get the chance to improve your herd and they can only do that if they rear a calf and go back incalf again.

The value of them calving at 24 months vs 30 months really diminishes if you have to give them angus rather than limousin.

Water John

For most, the choice is 24 or 36 months. A years milking, an extra calf and not an extra 12 months feeding an idle cow. I think that discussion was over, many moons ago.

Stock need to be hitting their marks right through their growth. Playing catch up as you get near calving is feeding a big calf. A bull with a short gestation is important on a few fronts.

tanko

Hard Knocks wrote: »

Thanks
Had problems with big calves last year & on herd health plan the vet was suggesting instead of rationed silage to give hay.
Would alternating do?

If the calves were too big surely the bull used was the problem and an easier calved bull would be better.

Never wrestle with pigs

charolais0153 wrote: »

The value of them calving at 24 months vs 30 months really diminishes if you have to give them angus rather than limousin.

Agree, aa and he are a waste of time in sucklers. Sorry some won't like it but it's true unless you're into pedigree breeding. Some he are just as hard calved. Plenty of good lim, sim, blonde, ch, etc to use instead.

charolais0153

tanko wrote: »

If the calves were too big surely the bull used was the problem and an easier calved bull would be better.

Theres 3 things to go wrong. Fed too much, cow not big enough and bull too big. If you have an easy calfing bull and good cow but if they are fed too much there is going to be problems. If you have good cow and feeding her right, she will calve anything. Like wise if the cow is too narrow she wont be able to calve the bull even if he is easy calving

patsy_mccabe

Don't understand why people get so hung up on gestation. Calving difficulty is the bottom line. I notice in recent years that the availability of easy calving AI Lim bulls has gone very low. Ncbc have none now. Saler might be a better option than the traditional breeds.

tanko

NCBC have a couple of new Lims that are supposed to be suitable for heifers, Dimoiwii (Lm2388) and Grenache (Lm4351), dont know how much their straws are.

patsy_mccabe

Both unproven Tanko.

tanko

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Both unproven Tanko.

True.
Big fan of easy calving Salers on heifers here.

Hard Knocks

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Don't understand why people get so hung up on gestation. Calving difficulty is the bottom line. I notice in recent years that the availability of easy calving AI Lim bulls has gone very low. Ncbc have none now. Saler might be a better option than the traditional breeds.

My opinion is gestation is as important as calving ease
If a bull is 5% CD, gestation of 285 days would be a smaller calf than one at 300 days.
Bigger the calf the harder to get out

patsy_mccabe

Hard Knocks wrote: »

My opinion is gestation is as important as calving ease
If a bull is 5% CD, gestation of 285 days would be a smaller calf than one at 300 days.
Bigger the calf the harder to get out

Not in term of genetics and breeding. The average gestation of the Limousin breed is 1.3 days longer than Charolais, yet the calving difficiculty of the limousin breed is 2.6% lower.
This is ICBF data for a huge number of bulls and calving surveys.