Waikato DairyNZ Farmwatch: Body condition score important this time of year

Decisions made now in terms of body condition score (BCS) will have a big impact on next season.

COMMENT

By DairyNZ

Most farms in the Waikato have an abundance of feed rarely seen at this time of year, but we still need to keep next spring in mind.

Decisions made now in terms of body condition score (BCS) will have a big impact on next season’s early production and reproductive performance.

Don’t underestimate the time it takes to put weight on.

Unless you have a lot of high-quality supplements to feed a dry cow, plan for her to put on 0.5 BCS unit/month.

From now, most cows are 110 to 140 days away from their planned calving date.

Cows will usually lose a little BCS during the two weeks following dry-off and won’t gain BCS in the month before calving.

Therefore, early calving cows only have 65 to 95 days during which they can gain BCS.

These are the cows that need immediate focus.

DairyNZ Farmwatch for week ending March 29.

July calving cows with a BCS below 4 will need to be dried off this month.

For more details visit www.dairynz.co.nz/animal/body-condition-scoring/ and the BCS dry-off calculator can be found here.