Top tips for your autumn calving system

With approximately 20% of suckler herds operating an autumn calving system, Teagasc advisor Aisling Molloy has some key tips on this week’s Beef Edge podcast. She discusses why autumn calving is appealing to some farmers and the various different beef systems that autumn calving suits. High quality silage is very important in reducing costs over the winter period in this system and targeting early turnout. Aisling emphasises that managing the cow’s body condition score in the lead up to calving is key to reducing issues at calving and post-calving. A quarter of Irish farm accidents and one-fifth of farm deaths are livestock-related with attacks by recently calved cows a common cause of such accidents. Aisling gives some top tips on safety at calving. Calving the suckler cow and caring for the new born calf are also important tasks on autumn calving suckler herds in the coming weeks and last spring, vet Tommy Heffernan gave a two-part interview to discuss these important topics in detail which are worth listening back to. In the first part, Tommy highlights all the top tips related to calving the suckler cow: http://bit.ly/CTC21 In the second part, Tommy highlights all the key tips related to caring for the newborn calf: https://bit.ly/Care4Calf For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at: https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com