tips - Crecora Mills

Smart Calver

Another quality product from Crecora Mills

“We only mix with the best”

The most stressful time for any farmer is the period around calving season. With so much potential for problems around this area we have been working hard to make this time as easy, profitable and stress free as possible.

Using our hands on knowledge and practical experience in dealing with cows before calving we are delighted to bring Smart Calver to our customers.

Smart Calver is our latest innovative product to come to the market and it is based on a high protein (18%) and high energy formulation (PDIE 125grms per kilo) with a top class pre calver mineral pack included.

As with all of our high energy feeds there is a large amount of high quality cereals included in Smart Calver such as Maize, Barley and Oats.

Reasons to feed Smart Calver

Provide the cow and calf with the vital balanced minerals to help prevent health problems and costly vet bills.

Provide a high energy feed to ensure the cow has enough energy to get through the calving process with the minimum of outside help.

Provide a balanced diet to allow the cow to return to full production as fast as possible.

Smart Calver ingredients include: Maize, Maize Gluten, Barley, Oats, Rapeseed, Soya Hulls, Hi-Pro Soya, Distillers Grains, Palm, Minerals and Molasses.

Call us on 061 355186 or talk to your local Sales Representative for more information

Calving Tips 2013

As we all now cows who struggle with health problems at calving are on the back foot in terms of Milk Production from the start.

Health problems such as assisted calving, retained placentas can have serious knock on effects down the road in terms of Milk Production and vet bills.

Here are some handy tips to remember to minimise potential health problems.

Remember to document health problems with cows, when you are in the thick of it can be difficult to remember in two or three weeks time which cow had what problems. If you record it you can see if certain cows are prone to problems over successive calving.
Calf cows in a clean environment. Keep in mind that during contractions a cow will take in any dirty contaminated air into her womb and this can cause serious health problems. Good clean Straw may be expensive this year and a bit of work but it is vastly cheaper than an empty cow.
Try to watch High risk calving or calving which is likely to be long duration.
Make sure cows that are due to calf are separated from the herd in plenty of time. The risk of her and her calf getting hurt during calving is exponentially greater if they are in a herd of others.
If you are assisting at calving make sure that you are clean. It may sound obvious but its worth remembering that the risk of a cow contracting infection goes up a hundred fold if you don’t use arm length gloves when assisting at calving.
Establish a routine after calving to clean equipment and have it ready to go for the next calving. Don’t wait till the next calving to start cleaning the ropes and equipment.

Stop and take a breath. This is experience from a hundred years ago that has been handed down and is still is relevant today. All too often we can fall into the temptation of jumping in all guns blazing to assist at a calving, especially if a cow is in distress. Cows like humans can tell a mile away if you are panicky or in bad humour and they will react to it. Stop and take a breath, if you are talking to someone talk in measured tones and take the time to think about what you are doing.