Easing post-calving heifers into productive life
After calving, heifers often suffer discomfort with swollen udders (oedema) and may be more difficult to move, handle and milk out.
The company reports strong demand from farmers for calving ease yearling bulls, which can effectively mate yearling heifers.
Animal breeding specialist Daniel Absolom says the most cost effective way to rebuild is from within the herd, so many farmers look at mating yearling heifers or mating more heifers than they would normally.
“On the back of drought there is limited supply of cows and the quality can be variable. So the best way for farmers to replace capital stock is for them to breed. By exposing more cows to the bull, farmers can achieve this.”
“This season we are seeing strong demand for calving ease yearling bulls which can go over yearling heifers. Farmers are keen to mate more of their heifers because they see it as the best option to rebuild their numbers.”
Beef + Lamb NZ economic service’s annual stock survey found 20,000 fewer breeding cows in the Lower North Island; Taranaki-Manawatu and the East Coast regions registered the biggest drop.
Focus Genetics quotes King Country farmer John Petersen as saying he was forced to cull at least 25 cows during the peak of the drought. “Feed got tight during the drought so we decided to drop our older cows and offloaded our 12-year-olds earlier than we usually would have. We now have more heifers in calf so we hope to replenish these cow numbers.”
Petersen has been farming Focus Genetics Stabilizer cattle for at least 10 years. He usually calves 90 heifers but this season he has over 100 in calf.
“The biggest challenge is getting two-year-old heifers back in calf. The Stabilizer works well. They get in calf easily, they’re good yielding and they have good growth weights. We generally calve about 90% vetted in calf, which is good on our steeper country.
“We have always bought the low birth weight yearling bulls with superior growth weight for our heifers and cows. These bulls will go over our heifers, but they also have good grunt to move into the older cows, so we can get the best of both worlds out of one bull.”
Petersen says by buying younger bulls he gets earlier genetic gain which is an attractive option, and they settle into the sire herd well without fighting.
