Quickly raising the low body condition score

[Deleted]

Sorry for the length of this topic - but I wanted to explain our situation for your best advice.

I am wondering what more we can do for some Dexters (and a handful of Jerseys) who are now agisting on our place.

Their ‘home’ ran out of good quality grazing grasses in early spring from lack of rain and with their owner sick and requiring a long recoop period from surgery, the moos welfare was in the hands of a ………………………person……………………..who could have been more attentive.

Their owner has had to hand feed – not supplement feed – but actually handfeed for the past couple of months.

We would love to bring the herd back to condition as quickly as possible for both owner and the moos sakes.
Our urgency is also fuelled by the fact all the girls are pregnant with most still lactating, and the two still-maturing bulls.

We intend to wean the calves from them as soon as they have settled into the ‘holiday resort’ to help alleviate some of the nutritional demand on their bodies.

We are lush and bottle-green in colour with native grasses sprouting everywhere due to the warm weather and constant rains/coastal showers we have had. The warm weather this week should ensure the continuance of the warm season grasses sprouting with the cold season grasses start to ramp up for their growth period. So feed at our place is and will not be an issue.

For the visiting moos we have roughage out in the form of meadow hay from the neighbouring property, so it is just dried forms of what we have growing with grass tetany lick blocks around.

Mmmm probably should provide a salt block, yes?
And there is a bale of roughage spoiling in our Dexters' area - they look at it like its poop!

We are mindful of supplement feeding in the form of Lucerne, triple mix, cattle nuts and such at the moment because these cows are having to adjust to months of dried, medium to low quality feed to sudden lush, new growth, moisture enriched, native grasses. They will take near a month to settle into their new diet.

Surely there is more we could do though – but I just don’t know what?

Is there any such thing as a vitamin and mineral lick block? Our produce owner wasn’t sure.

Any suggestions or feeding plans would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Donna

[Olga]

Also, cows can go lame from too much rich feed too fast, kind of like when horses founder. Slow is the better way. Give all they can eat good hay, limit lush green at first or they might scour. On those in poorest condition, wait to worm till they improve a bit. Give probiotics to restore gut flora.

[dexterfarm]

I think people feed way to much minerals. When I was growing up the only thing our cows ever got was trace mineral and salt blocks. On advice of others I started giving loose minerals also used the hi mag blocks in the spring. The hi mag blocks just made the poo run through them and preventing them from putting on weight in the spring. After reading studies that hi mag may not be the best thing to prevent tetany. If the cows are consuming enough salt to balance minerals there is less issues with mineral imbalance. I also pulled the hi mineral content. I am now back to where I started just trace mineral blocks and salt blocks and the cows do great.

[lakeportfarms]

I'll approach it from a slightly different perspective...do you have the ability to do managed intensive grazing? Temporary step ins and hot wire on reels, moving them at least daily. If the cows are trained to hot fence, you can accomplish bringing them up to weight without as much risk of bloat by gradually increasing the amount of grass they have to graze each day. If you can move the back (following) hot line close behind them and still give them access to water and mineral, they have limited pasture to roam, which means a little less traveling around. Since you're out there a couple of times/day to move them, it gives you the opportunity to assess their condition and reduce the amount they're eating if they seem to be overconsuming. Another advantage is that when they go into an area they'll eat all of the forage, and it gives it a chance to recover following the grazing since they're not going back to it over and over again when it gets a little new fresh growth. This may allow you to extend your grazing season a bit and stockpile forage so they'll have access to it a bit longer before you get into possibly having to feed hay.


In the grazing season, we move ours twice, sometimes three times per day, and they immediately go and munch the new grass, get a full belly, and then go find a place to lay down and loaf around until it's time for the next "feeding". We have seen spectacular improvements in the condition of a few of our "hard to keep" cows, to the point where we need to periodically put them on a diet they've gained so well.

I realize that not everybody has the time or setup to do this, and to set it up takes some work and money, but it's well worth working toward if possible and practical.

[Cascade Meadows Farm - Kirk]

Mar 5, 2013 9:29:28 GMT -5 lakeportfarms said:

I'll approach it from a slightly different perspective...do you have the ability to do managed intensive grazing? Temporary step ins and hot wire on reels, moving them at least daily. If the cows are trained to hot fence, you can accomplish bringing them up to weight without as much risk of bloat by gradually increasing the amount of grass they have to graze each day. If you can move the back (following) hot line close behind them and still give them access to water and mineral, they have limited pasture to roam, which means a little less traveling around. Since you're out there a couple of times/day to move them, it gives you the opportunity to assess their condition and reduce the amount they're eating if they seem to be overconsuming. Another advantage is that when they go into an area they'll eat all of the forage, and it gives it a chance to recover following the grazing since they're not going back to it over and over again when it gets a little new fresh growth. This may allow you to extend your grazing season a bit and stockpile forage so they'll have access to it a bit longer before you get into possibly having to feed hay.


In the grazing season, we move ours twice, sometimes three times per day, and they immediately go and munch the new grass, get a full belly, and then go find a place to lay down and loaf around until it's time for the next "feeding". We have seen spectacular improvements in the condition of a few of our "hard to keep" cows, to the point where we need to periodically put them on a diet they've gained so well.

I realize that not everybody has the time or setup to do this, and to set it up takes some work and money, but it's well worth working toward if possible and practical.

AMEN to this....

This approach will also greatly improve your pastures and reduce or even eliminate the need for chemical de-wormers.

[Deleted]

I will try and answer/explain in short bits to everyone

No, bloat from fresh grass can happen anywhere. This is one of the things we are worried about too.
We have the meadow hay for roughage, as well as the tetany blocks, which these cows are definitely getting into, which is great.

They were wormed/drenched a week before they came to us. We are in a fluke area but I will need to double check with their owner as to the brand etc.

Yes we do have a government sponsored place called LHPA. I didnt think of asking them to assist in the identification of the deficiencies in the area, especially with the wide-spread availability of native grasses.

Genebo, your advice can indeed be more helpful as you could bring a different perspective to the table. And Dexters are Dexters no matter where they are in the world

Oh dear Olga ¡V I wasnt aware of this aspect of lameness. Limiting the green grass is not possible as there are no bare patches at our place.

And the half decent hay in our area is being sent to the flood ravaged Queensland state and the burnt out areas within Victoria.

But I am going to look into the Probiotics, that has to help.

Hi Dexterfarm, yes do have to agree with your there. Man may think he knows best but mother-nature has a way of belittling him everytime.

Peter Andrews wrote "Back from the Brink¨ and "Beyond the Brink" highlighting exactly the problems with such things and how he witness it as a child, and worked to correct this as an adult in some of the harshness conditions here in Australia.

We do agree with most of what he has suggested, just not all. Its the little things like weeping willows around dams¡K¡K.agree there needs to be something, just not them.

Mineral and salt blocks I havent got for them as I needed them to concentrate on the tetany blocks. But I will get some by the weekend to help them along a little.

LakeportFarms, yes I agree with the principles of rotational grazing for land management. We just havent figured out how to do this on our place.
Until these cows came to visit, we had only 15 Dexters running freely on 100 acres. Now they are confined to one half of the propety and the new arrivals, the other half.

Also we need our soil and grass specialist in to best advise us because we are solely unspoilt, uncultivated in anyway, naturally growing native grass.

Not sure about over there with you, but having such vigourous, and naturally established warm and cool season native grasses which are highly sought after for year round grazing is like adding another 3 bedrooms to your house.

Unclean seed can range anywhere from $150 to $3000 per kilo.
Some native grasses also respond well to heavy grazing but only at certain times of the year, others dont like the intensity at any time of the year, and so on.

So if we dont do the right thing, rotational grazing at our place will cause irreversible damage.

We know we are extremely fortunate as we should never have to hand feed or supplement feed.

We were told we could run 40 head of cattle and still maintain good year round grazing without the need to feed. This report was provided to us in the middle of the drought.

We are now out of drought with regular rain, and we chose Dexters instead of Angus.



So for the visiting midget moos to condition them up:

• mineral and salt lick blocks and watch for lameness and stomach irritations.
  (Which they do have already - loose stools yesterday, but this was to be expected from the sudden change in diet.)
  
  
• Get the LHPA expert in as well as the soil and native grass guy for advice.
  
  
• and Probiotics as well.
  

Thanks so much everyone. Your advice has been wonderful
;D
Heres' hoping we can get the 7 body scorers off the number one and have them head towards number 6 real soon.

The majority are bouncing between 2-4 but more are close to 2 possibly 3 really.

[ctownson]

There are a number of heifer development or show feeds that would assist in bringing the condition scores up in a more rapid fashion. These are typically in the 17% protein range. Feeding this as a supplement to your pastures and/or hay might prove beneficial in reaching your goal.

[Deleted]

Mar 5, 2013 21:38:13 GMT -5 ctownson said:

There are a number of heifer development or show feeds that would assist in bringing the condition scores up in a more rapid fashion. These are typically in the 17% protein range. Feeding this as a supplement to your pastures and/or hay might prove beneficial in reaching your goal.

Oh really? I will look some up now - fantastic - thank you

[Deleted]

Thank you so much genebo.

You gave me a scientific reason for the dried meadow hay we piled up for them after the produce place recommended it for roughage. And I noticed yesterday that most were at least nosing through it.

The tetany blocks we put out are full of molasses, more so than I though they should be, but from your explanation, that's a good thing. And they all are into both blocks so much that I will have to pick up another one today with the mineral and salt blocks that should have come in overnight on order.

We have already had an incident of my over feeding cattle nuts to one heifer, of course the weekend before Christmas when an available vet was hard to find out here was when that all happened.

Thank goodness for my uncle who is up to date with most things cattle, bi-carb soda, berocca (vit. b) and veggie oil mixed with enough water to be fluid was given to her 3 times a day for two days before she showed any signs of recovery. still counting my lucky stars on that incident as we could have so easily lost her.
So cattle nuts and anything grain, we avoid like the plague now.

We never planned on agisting cattle so we are not setup to allow for a slow dietary change, and that did bother us with these dexters being so thin and out of condition. We are still worried that one will not be able to handle diarrhea, even for a short period.

We are watching them, evaluating them as they come up to say hello ( which is actually lovely given the number -even the two boys in the herd are very sweet and we are total strangers to them) every day.

Today, Thursday is day 6 that they have been with us. If we can get them through another week, then I will start to breath a little more easily.

Thanks again for the advice, it has been invaluable not just for the visiting moos, but for our education purposes as well.
Thanks