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Post by Cloverbell on Nov 16, 2007 11:52:12 GMT -5
I am thinking now I will deworm the herd (pour on) when I get them up next week to preg check all. I have only done it in early spring the past few years but it cannot hurt with the way things have gone this summer and the cows grazing so very close to the ground.
Hay around here is a depressing situation. The hard freeze at Easter put all crops into a tail spin. Then the "exceptional" drought (as it is classified now) took the last breath. Hay cuttings in May were down 30-50% already and there is literally NO fall cuttings. I have seen fields with 3 round bales that last year had 25. It's not even worth the price of fuel to cut what little is there.
I still have 40 rolls in the barn from last year when I went a little overboard, thank GOD! and have re-seeded all pastures in rye grass and cereal rye for quick winter grazing. We've had over 12 inches of rain in the last 45 days so it's coming along great. Broke all the pastures into even smaller sections for intense rotational grazing - moving the herd every day now as opposed to once a week. The only thing that saved us this summer was a planting of sudan grass (cousin of sugar cane) that grows like crazy and can take the drought. The cows loved it and we only let them in it for an hour or two a day, sometimes every other day. We will move more pasture into native warm season grasses starting in spring.
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Post by liz on Nov 16, 2007 13:56:23 GMT -5
I am sorry about your hay situation...I can't even imagine that stress and really hope that I never experience it. I hope that my perspective doesn't insult anyone, but here goes.... My cows don't have very much pasture here, the steer go to rented pastures for the 'green' months (6 here). The cows are eating hay and whatever green is in the barn paddock, from July onward. I rotate on and off the rest of the pasture so that they can have some good grass and clover at least 1/3 of the time. I supplement their diet of hay and a bit of organic grain at milking, with a good mineral lick and kelp meal. I do not deworm adults as a routine. I think that with proper mineral and nutrition they should be able to handle their worm loads and extreme loss of condition usually means another stresser, calving, weaning, corona virus (this time of year!). I agree with you P.J. that too often people are told that Dexters are 'easy keepers' and think that that means that they can deliver milk to the house and a calf for the freezer and yet have no nutritional needs past whatever grass is in their yard, but the other thing that I think is that often people look for an easy solution, antibiotics or dewormers to solve issues that are often metabolic. Now I do use antibiotics and dewormers if it is necessary but sometimes it is less expensive to take a temperature or have a fecal count done, instead of reaching for the bottle. I am also aware that I am dealing with the health of 5 cows and their resulting calves not 50 or 500 so what I believe may not be practical for others, it's JMO. Liz
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Post by anthony on Nov 16, 2007 15:56:51 GMT -5
When we do fecal counts on our main herd we walk throught the pasture and pick up random samples. No, it won't tell you if indivicual animals are all good but it will give you an overview of what is going on. A good mineral program along with a good nutrition and vaccination program should leave the worming of cows over 4-5 years of age pretty unneccesary. We never worm our adult Dexters and all the fecal tests show very low levels from their pasture.. There is one out there though that we will worm this winter when working her for pregchecking.. She is an unthrifty one and would probably win just about any ugly cow contest she entered.. Luckily, her personality sucks too, lol.
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Post by Cloverbell on Nov 18, 2007 18:17:43 GMT -5
Ok, now I'm NOT going to worm. Y'all are making my head spin.
How about this, when the vet is out and sticking his arm you-know-where to preg check he usually always does an intense "squint" at what he pulls out. Now, I know his intense squint is not a microscope but he's looking for whatever-I-don't-wanna-know and I'll ask his opinion at that point whether I need to do anything about worms.
By the way ladies, my vet happens to be gor-geous so I'll let you know when he's due at my farm and you're all invited.
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Post by liz on Nov 18, 2007 18:41:49 GMT -5
cool, send a picture! Liz
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Post by liz on Nov 19, 2007 6:18:37 GMT -5
Hi Gene; Intensive grazing, paddock system is becoming a big hit here not only for parasite control, particularily with sheep, but also for revitalizing the pastures....keeps the weeds down! It is interesting to note that before we humans put all of these animals on 'intensive grass' they would browse, eating weeds and plants that helped keep the worm population under control. Liz
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Post by copperhead on Nov 19, 2007 20:20:04 GMT -5
Ain't it amazing how mother nature used to take care of her animals, then we came along and messed everything up. I don't worm my cattle on a real regular basis, because I have enough pasture that I can rotate the cows on a long enough basis that they don't get to complete the cycle. It's a luxury for sure. I worm when I have them de-horned and usually once a year after that. I do have enough browse for them to get the different weeds and such that they might need. I have noticed that the Dexters do browse more that other breeds, except for Brahmas. I saw all of mine out here today eating sycamore leaves like they were candy. P.J.
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Post by anthony on Nov 19, 2007 21:00:19 GMT -5
Yep.. Some cows really do like leaves. My Dexters love Mulbery trees much more than the Angus do but the Angus consume a heck of a lot more of the industrial hemp that is on the farm, unfortunetly not nearly enough as we end up having to mow a bunch of it.. Certain weeds are candy, certain are avoided like the plague, which I could bring in about 2000 goats once a year to clean it all up real fast, like 5 days and than ship them out, lol.
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