How prepared are your calves for grazing grass?

A calf that underperforms during its first grazing season is likely to fall short on key performance indicators.

So what can farmers do to make sure their calves successfully transition from the housed environment with its home comforts and milk diet to the field where grass is the main feed?

Consider the current diet

One of the first and most important checks before turnout is to establish the amount of solid feed being consumed.

Although it may be tempting to send younger animals out to grass with earlier-born calves, even though they won’t be consuming adequate levels of concentrate, this is not recommended.

Grazing management

Weather conditions

Check the weather forecast and only introduce calves to their new outdoor setup when conditions are favourable to avoid putting them under stress.

Prepare a sheltered area in the field that the calves can use if the weather conditions change.

Grazing system

Always graze calves first in a fresh paddock and follow with older stock to help control worm infestations.

Calves should ideally have fresh grass daily, certainly no longer than every three days.

Strip grazing is the top choice when it comes to managing youngstock as it encourages calves to eat all the grass, to clean out paddocks, and therefore provides them with a balance of nutrients, particularly as the swards will be at different stages of growth and have structural variations. This gives them a balance to help the transition to a grass diet.

Cleaning out paddocks also keeps grass fresh and reduces the likelihood of it souring. If calves are given access to a full field to graze, they will walk over it multiple times, selecting the tastiest grass first and working their way to the poorer-tasting swards. This results in a variable diet and inconsistent daily weight gains.

Moving calves often will help improve intakes and, as a consequence, daily liveweight gains.

Maintaining access to clean grass reduces the risk of coccidiosis.

Meal feeding at grass

If possible, it is good to feed ad-lib meal in the field but bird activity often prevents this.

Ideally, encourage calves to consume 2-3kg meal a day but that level of intake can be difficult to achieve, particularly if the grass is very sweet.

Calves will normally show their preference for what they need or indeed want but, in the case of fresh grass, it is very much like humans and sweet treats – they will fill themselves up on it but won’t get the required nutrients. Sometimes, to achieve required intakes meal must be fed twice daily however, as this is not always possible when labour is stretched, aim to feed at least 1kg.

Not feeding meal when calves go out to grass could be detrimental to their health as it takes time for them to build up the ability to fully digest and access the nutrients in the grass.

Keep small amounts of grass ahead of them by offering new grass daily or every couple of days, and encourage them to clean out the paddock as this will help achieve meal intake targets and promote daily weight gains.

The timing of when to withdraw meal can often be dictated by the season and associated weather conditions.

If the grazing season is very unpredictable and weather changeable, it is best to leave calves on a buffer of concentrates to counteract the stress of the changing consistency in grass.

When the year is dry and the weather very stable, concentrates can be removed in late summer, but only if calves are receiving fresh grass frequently and their diet is consistent.

Offer an alternative source of roughage

In the first few weeks at pasture, it is advisable to provide calves with roughage, such as straw, hay or silage, or the feed they received in their housing, as this will add additional fibre to their diet and ease the transition.