Tips On How To Evaluate Your Spring Calving

10 May 2023

With spring calving now wrapping up on many farms, it is a good time to evaluate and reflect on calving, while it is still fresh on your mind. What did you do really well this year? How many calves were expected and how many were born alive? How many losses were there in the first 24 hours or the first three weeks?

Review Everything

Reviewing the good, bad and everything in between allows you to assess current management practices and look at potential changes ahead of the next calving season. Taking just a few minutes to complete a table like the example below gathers valuable data, which will help your vet advise you on health and fertility during your health plan review. This sort of data and discussion is invaluable, and highlights areas best to target for improvement.

Build A Dataset

Reviewing your calving annually and consistently has the advantage of creating a valuable data set which is farm specific which can be referred back to, to look at trends on your farm over the years.

Having real farm data, also allows you to set targets for spring calving 2024. Any data you can record, or note down will help with the future efficiency of your suckler herd.

Sarah Balfour – Beef Consultant

Related FAS Materials

https://www.fas.scot/publication/calving-heifers-at-2-5-years-old-results-and-reflections/

https://www.fas.scot/publication/calving-heifers-at-2-years-old-results-and-reflections/

https://www.fas.scot/publication/calving-heifers-at-3-years-old-results-and-reflections/

https://www.fas.scot/article/losses-at-calving-should-i-investigate/

https://www.fas.scot/article/caesarean-cows-breed-again/