Youngstock Management

Young Stock

The youngstock of any system are the future of your herd. It is important to get their rearing correct from a young age in order to ensure that they are strong and healthy when they join the herd.

At Parklands Veterinary group we have a team of specialist Farm vets who can carry out visits to assess your calf rearing and provide advice on everything from colostrum management and disease control to building design and ventilation systems.

They work closely with the routine vet and vet techs to provide an all-round approach which ensures continuity as well as good monitoring and early detection of issues.

We also run a specific service for heifer rearing  as it has been proven growth rates has a significant impact on the future fertility and production as a cow. The Youngstock Advisory Service (4×4 club) is designed to work closely with you and your team to take your heifers from birth to calving, but with a concentrated focus on the critical first few months of life.

Improved youngstock husbandry and nutrition in months 0-6 reduces mortality and improves health through the productive life.

Better grown, healthier calves enable you to capitalise on your investment in your breeding program, reducing rearing costs and improving herd performance.

Parklands 4×4 club

The Advisory Service provides you with a specialist youngstock management package tailored to your farm with regular monitoring and ongoing evaluation.

A vet-tech will visit your farm to weigh-tape calves and collect treatment and mortality data.

A vet will then visit to assess calf health and identify calf problems and disease within the framework of your calf-rearing objectives.

Our vets will evaluate all aspects of calf management, health care and nutrition to identify both strengths and areas for improvement in order to achieve maximum growth and performance targets so improving profitability.

This will enable you to:

• Better understand your current situation

• Monitor the performance of your calves

• Focus attention on problems that should be addressed.

Parklands vets will also anonymously compare your data to other farms in the database, enabling you to assess your progress against other similar farms.

From this Parklands Vet Group will provide a summary report outlining the findings from your farm assessment. A recommended course of action will then be tailored to your farm with the support of your Parklands vet.

A second vet-tech visit within the 12 month period will re-examine growth rates and disease incidence. After analysing the data, a vet will again visit to discuss progress and make further recommendations. In subsequent years there will be twice-yearly data gathering and advice given as necessary. All subscribers to the Youngstock Advisory Service will get the chance to attend three discussion group meetings per year on a range of calf-related topics.

Heifer Rearing 4×4 Club

Current research shows that calving heifers down at 24 months rather than 30 months results in:

• Lower production costs – less time from birth to milk results in heifers paying themselves back quicker
• Longer productive life – by 5 years old, younger heifers will have spent 1/3rd more of their life in the parlour, and can therefore produce 7,000 L more than older heifers; for every 5 heifers calving at 23-25 months an extra 1 reaches 3rd lactation compared to calving at >30months.
• Less heifers needed as replacements – the older heifers are when they calve the more heifers you need as replacements since they take longer to come into the herd

Our Targets:

• Age at first calving – 24 months, for every day over this target that a heifer is not in milk she’s costing you £5/day.
• Targeted growth throughout the first 24months; farm specific growth curves and targets depending on cow breed and type.
• Heifers calving at body condition score (BCS) 3; to ensure heifers are fit for calving but not fat.

The 4×4 Scheme:

  1. 4 x Half Day Lantra Education Meetings Focusing on disease, nutrition, housing and recent advances in research.
  2. Quarterly meetings split into stages of production:
  •  0-3 months
  • 3-6 months
  • 6-13 months
  • 13-24 months

3.  2 hour on farm investigation tailored to your needs, and can include:

  • Farm specific disease
  • Vaccination programmes
  • Housing and system assessment
  • Weighing a selection of heifers at different stages and assessing growth rates
  • Reduced price on TP test in young calves

For more information on the programme please do not hesitate to contact us directly on:

Parklands Cookstown: 028 86765765

Parklands Dungannon: 028 87752299

Parklands Portglenone: 028 25821239