Regular weighing a crucial tool

Don’t forget about your calves now that they are weaned! Like we monitor milk dockets for changes in production in the herd, monitoring of calf weights should be ongoing to allow early action when liveweight and growth rate targets are not met.

Regular weighing is a crucial tool to monitor that young stock are on track and allows early recognition of a problem. The graphs below are from a group of calves that had been performing well against target liveweights. It could have been easy to assume they were now on track but the next two weighings identified a drop in growth rates. Luckily this was identified early before there was a big impact on liveweights and the farmer increased supplementary feeding which brought them back on track in time for mating.

Franklin Vets offers a range of heifer services to cover weighing and animal health requirements:

• Heifer Health Plus – you still take care of your grazing and Franklin Vets create and manage an annual customised plan to suit your requirements at a set weekly per head rate
• Heifer Health – a customised animal health plan with key live weight targets and calendar to provide reminders to carry out key events
• Technician weighing service – weighing, reporting and Minda entry
• Data entry of weigh to Minda Weights.

Contact your local Franklin Vets clinic for more information on our young stock health services.

Dr Ilyse Jennens BVSc (Dist) MANZCVS Medicine of Dairy Cattle – Vet & Branch Manager, Franklin Vets Waitakaruru