Author: darvuadmin

It may sound like a simple thing but from my trips to farmers yards all over the country one thing stands out in every bin I have seen. There is no way to physically get into the bin to clean it out properly and safely. This leads to the eventual scenario where over the years the bin is not cleaned out properly at all.

Condensation builds up on any surface, witness the windows on your house where drops of water can form on the inside of the glass. This condensation affects outside Animal feed bins in the same way by forming little droplets of water inside the bin. Obviously this effect is very small but over the years I have seen this to build up in farm bins that are not cleaned out leading to feed sticking to the side of the bin for months or years on end. This can lead to moulds or mycotoxins building up in the bin which has knock on effects for the next feed you put into the bin. Mycotoxins are micro organisms that can have a poisonous effect on your cattle so anything we can do to minimise their presence will have a beneficial effect on all our profits at the end of the year.

It is a difficult thing to do with most bins but it is well worth while making the effort at least to look into the bin with a flashlight from whatever inspection hatch you have to check your bin. When i asked a few customers many said they had never actually seen the inside of their bin!

In our animal feed mills we empty our bins totally and inspect them from inside at the very least every 3 months. In practice we do it a lot more regularly than that. The Department of Agriculture inspectors call a few times a year at random to inspect our premises and as part of that our bin empty records, along with physically checking the bins themselves to ensure that they are clean and free from any potential condensation problems.

It might be an idea to put it in your plan to have a good look at your bin the next time it is empty.

Charles Chavasse – 14 January 2014

For a cow to have a long and productive life, good health during the first few weeks on the farm are essential.

In recent years there has been much research to show that animals that remain disease-free grow faster and reach target weights for breeding and calving down earlier.

These disease-free animals also produce more milk in their first and subsequent lactations and they are more likely to stay in the herd for longer.

The generally accepted target weight for breeding heifers is 60pc of their adult weight, which for a Friesian heifer will be approximately 330kg at 15 months of age.

If a calf is born weighing 40kg, this means that on average she must have a daily live weight gain of nearly 650g per day.

In seasonal calving herds, a later born calf will have to grow faster than this, as it is important for heifers to calve down as a group at the beginning of the calving season.

Research has shown that heifers that calve down earlier, and have a younger age of first calving, result in a quicker return on investment.

Even when meeting the recommended targets, the farmer doesn’t get any return for his investment until midway through the animal’s second lactation.

However a heifer who calves down six months later than the target date — say at 30 months as opposed to 24 months — will a) have incurred more costs pre-calving and b) will not show a positive profit until over four years of age, which is 10 months later than the heifer that calved at 24 months of age.

So what are the factors that affect growth in young calves?

Calf nutrition, calf health and genetics all play a role and in this article, we examine the common nutrition and health factors that can affect calf growth.

Charles Chavasse MRCVS is an area veterinary manager with Zoetis and a member of the Animal Health Ireland technical working group on calf health

Irish Independent

2014 is upon us and with it brings a whole new year and lots of new opportunities.

I find it is a great time to look back on the previous year and see what has gone well and also what did not go well in the farm business.

What would we have done differently if we were faced with the same set of challenges this year or in the years ahead?

The key learnings from 2013 that customers have related to me are:

1. Budget your Fodder. Measure your pit, count your animals and allow for a wet spring. Feeding a little extra concentrate over the winter when short on fodder saved my customers thousands in fodder costs.

2. Cut your silage with quality in mind. This year many farmers waited a few weeks to bulk up their silage crops. In many cases this has led to low quality silages being fed with a subsequent lack of performance. Silage is an extremely expensive fodder! It has to be quality!

3. Value of Straw. Perhaps over any other point due to the fodder crisis people can see the value of straw in the Ruminant diet. Being forced to feed large quantities of it last spring has opened many farmers eyes to the possibility of using it as a portion of the diet in high concentrate scenarios. We fed 14 continental bulls concentrate and straw diet with great results early in the year at housing.

4. Parasite control. Unfortunately after the previous few wet summers there is a huge parasite population in the soil. It is generally accepted across the Island that all soil types have picked up large amounts of parasitic organisms. Grazing in anything less than ideal conditions has resulted in animals picking up large quantities of Rumen and Liver fluke with serious knock on results. A key point to remember is that an animal with a large population of Parasites will use 2 kilos of concentrate feed a day to survive. Dosing effectively and regularly is the lowest cost solution. Farmers who have adopted this approach have seen big increases in feed efficiency.

5. Sit back and take 10 minutes to plan ahead your next months activities. A little forward thinking can make a huge difference between running around after problem after problem or getting ahead and making life easier in the long run. Small things like fixing gates, having the tractor in good condition, fitting a few lights for working in the winter or for late nights calving cows. Clearing the yard of any unwanted or unused items can also make everyone’s life a lot easier. How many times have we seen an old mower or slurry tank abandoned in a yard for months on end till the wife hits it with the car!

Good news again from John O’Connell Feeds that we can announce price reductions across our range of feeds for October. thank fully our suppliers have passed down some of the reduction in world market prices and we are eager to pass them on to our customers.

We still have the same high quality feeds and a great delivery service all at a reduced rate.

Call us on 061 355186 for more details.

Farming continues to be one of the most dangerous occupations in Ireland. In light of this here are a couple of farm safety guidelines.

1. Pto guards. Simple advice this. Make sure they are fitted, in good condition and clipped on. And for heavens sake don’t ever go near a pto shaft while it is running. There is no farm activity bar agitating where you ar anyone else should be operating a pto shaft from outside a cab. If you need to get out of the cab switch it off. Simple advice but this is where most people get killed or lose limbs. A pto shaft will not stop if your arm or coat gets caught in it, it will pull you in till something gives.

2. Slurry handling and agitation.

When we are doing slurry related activities straight away alarm bells go off in my head and they should be going off in yours too. Slurry is the most dangerous activity on a farm. As mentioned above slurry agitation is where most pto related deaths and injuries take place so for gods sake make sure the pto guard is 100% perfect on the agitator. Stay away from the shaft as much as possible.

Open all shed doors if you are agitating and try to wait for a day with a breeze to ventilate the gasses emitted from the slurry. Remember they are odourless and heavy gasses so they stay on the ground level. There have been too many tragedies involving gases poisoning people and serious lung injury or death is far too commonplace. Stay well away while agitating and make sure people know where you are and what you are doing when doing this job.

Slurry Tanks/Pits

Nobody likes them but they are a feature of everyday farming with the current regulations. Again its simple advice, Slurry tanks and pits must be properly fenced off. They should have signs up on the fence warning people to stay away. Remember its not neccesarrily you that you are warning off but children and people unfamiliar with farming. Your children may know to stay away but their friends may not. This is a common cause of child fatality on farms. Broken fences or walls around the pits must be fixed as a priority. If nothing more than peace of mind could you forgive yourself if an accident occurred and you thought you could have prevented it?

3.Tractors and farm equipment.

Tractor cabs if designed for one person should only have one person in them. Common injuries or fatalitys occur when a passenger falls off the tractor and gets crushed by the back wheel. Obviously the drawbar of the tractor is the least suitable place for anyone to be. The amount of people getting killed from falling from drawbars is staggering. Use your common sense. Don’t do it. Any passenger would be better off walking or waiting for a lift than paralysed from a fall.

Children and machinery do not mix. Most kids are fascinated by tractors and equipment but in todays fast paced farming world, the farmyard is a very dangerous place. Tractors are much bigger, faster and more powerful than ever before and pressure on contractors and farmers means that speeds can often be excessive. This is not a place for children. The safest place for a child is in the cab of the tractor if it is designed to hold them. Even then they can be a distraction and the possibility of making a mistake rises dramatically. Again childrens friends may not be familiar with farms and need to be supervised. Better a disappointed child than a seriously injured one.

Animal Handling.

Animals by their nature can be unpredictable. A cow that you may have had for years with no problems can get agitated and pin you to a gate or wall in the wrong circumstances. It is probably the most dangerous side to farming as you are around animals every day and familiarity can breed carelessness. When you walk into a hard of animals be aware of where you are. Have an escape plan. If you are herding animals that you think may be easily agitated use the tractor. More than one farmer has had to roll under the tractor when animals become dangerous and often with out warning.

If animals become agitated let them off. Running after them with sticks generally will not do anyone any good. Leave them for an hour or two and try to coax them with a bag of feed to get them to where you want them.

Now that Autumn is upon us and the days are just starting to draw in it is time to concentrate on getting ready for the winter housing period.

There are always lots of jobs to be done to improve housing and fix problems that made life difficult last year. Unfortunately most people do nothing about them until the cattle are outside swimming in the fields needing to come in!

So what are the typical jobs that need to be done?

1. Roofing.

Every year sadly there are always incidents of serious injury and deaths in farms from people trying to repair roofs in high winds in winter. If you have a suspect roof now is the time to act to fix or replace it. Leaks, loose sheets and leaky gutters are the most common offenders.

2. Make sure your winter housing is cleaned out and ready for cattle.

The most common cases of diseases problems on farms are where the houses are never cleaned out and a buildup of disease is inevitable.  A slurry tank full with water and a 2 inch hose I find is great at removing the heaviest stuff while there is nothing for the smaller stuff only power washer, brush and time. This job should really be done the minute that the cattle leave the shed while it is fresh but better late than never.

3.Repair gates and latches.

There will always be wear and tear on gates and the like while you are dealing with cattle in a housing situation. Now is the time to act to improve your winter work. Inspect the gates before the cattle go in. It will be a lot easier to repair them while the yard is clean and the day is dry rather than in December in the cold and wet! Maybe an additional gate would make your job easier bringing in the animals? maybe a simple latch to hold the gate open or closed instead tying and untying a baling twine?

4.Feed Storage.

If you are using a Winter feed bin or house clean it out! A recent survey reveals that less than 5% of farmers have ever cleaned their feed bins out properly. If you open the chute and nothing comes out that does not mean the bin is empty! Only opening the bin and looking into it with a flashlight is a true inspection.  Condensation builds up in bins and over time and feed can stick to the walls of the bins causing old feed to be retained. In extreme cases I have seen a so called “empty” bin hold nearly 500kgs of 2 to 3 year old feed which inevitably was gone off. Houses used to store feed need to be leak free, have a good door to keep out rodents and good lighting. We have had a customer that kept running out of feed for 12 months or more till one day he replaced the lightbulb in the shed! Problem solved he can now budget his feed better and save him an emergency trip to the store every other week!

5.Storage of Machinery and equipment during the winter.

During the winter you would hope not to need the grass mower, topper, haybob, baler and a lot of other equipment so its a good time to spend an hour clearing out a shed for them and storing them. A quick wash in this dry weather will have them dried out in a few hours, a quick grease to the bearings and put it away till next year ready to work again when time will be tight next spring.