A large crowd of farmers, agri-industry personnel and students from Ballyhaise Agricultural College gathered at the farm of Philip and Leona Hayes in Butlersbridge, Co. Cavan on Tuesday, January 21, for the CalfCare on-farm event.

The series of on-farm events are taking place across the country and are being hosted in association with Teagasc and Animal Health Ireland (AHI).

The host farmer Philip Hayes is farming with his wife Leona and his father Philip and the main enterprise on the farm is dairy calf to beef.

Calves are reared on the farm with an automatic calf feeder and all cattle are brought to beef and are supplied to ABP Food Group.

Philip said: "Autumn calves are transferred from the calf shed to rubber slat mats when they get to 100-120kg."

Commenting on his system, he said: "We try and not source calves younger than four weeks of age. Calves are introduced to milk at a rate of 4L/day and this is built up to 6L/day. All calves are vaccinated for infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) and bovine respiratory disease (BRD) intranasally and they get a booster at housing the following autumn."

Most calves purchased on the farm are Angus and Hereford with a few continental calves also.

The host farmer said: "The primary focus on the farm is calf health. Starting off with a bad calf that wasn't minded, it's just a nightmare.

"A thermometer is the cheapest thing you can buy. We are constantly checking calf temperatures to try get in front of anything that might be brewing."

Calves are reared on the farm by way of an automatic calf feeder. Calves get 2L of milk three times a day. As regards concentrate feeding, Hayes said: "We start them on Lakeland calf crunch and build them up to Lakeland calf grower then on to a super beef ration."

Teagasc vet John Donlon discussed calf health and reminded farmers of the importance of dry bedding allowing calves to nest in the straw and rearing calves in a draught-free shed.

He said: "A lot of calf houses will stay under 10° for most of the spring and that's the threshold where calves need to burn energy to keep warm.

"What you need to do to keep calves warm is protect them from draughts and the other big thing is bedding.

"We need the bedding under calves to be nice and dry because if the bedding is wet, it's going to drive up the calves energy demand to keep itself warm."

Teagasc's Fergal Maguire spoke on calf nutrition and rumen development. He said: "The big thing is to grow your calf and develop that rumen so when that calf goes out for the summer, it's able to eat that grass and convert that into energy for growth."

When weaning calves off milk, he said: "What I like to see is them eating 1.5kg meal for 3-4 consecutive days. Rather than let your calves straight out to grass, there should be a transitionary period where they're getting forage and meal so when that calf goes out to grass, it's not going to fall apart."

Volac's Tomas O'Reilly reminded farmers of the importance of ensuring constant access to fresh water and concentrates and said when mixing milk, 1L of mixed milk should be 875ml water and 125g milk.

He added that as a general rule of thumb, a calf should be at least double the birth weight at weaning.

Teagasc's Tommy Cox discussed the Commercial Beef Value (CBV) and how it can benefit farmers when buying calves from the dairy herd for beef production.

The host farmer acknowledged that the higher CBV calves "are performing better" on the farm than the lower CBV calves.

The farm buys calves with a CBV over €100 meaning all calves are in the top 40% of the population for CBV.

Animal Health Ireland (AHI) vet Michelle McGrath detailed advice on using pain relief when disbudding or castrating calves.