Calving is going well on Victorian beef farms with autumn-calving herds.
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Dry weather conditions have left hardy calves which dry off quickly and the lack of rain has meant there has been few bugs to cause scour.
Tony and Sue Morgan, Bayles, started their calving season this week with 40 Limousin cows ready to drop to their Red Angus bull.
The herd was kept in paddocks close to the yard with hay supplemented.
Last year, the couple assisted just one of the herd when calving, the first cow which had twins.
They hoped to have the same level of minimal assistance this autumn calving season.
He said the Red Angus calves off the Limousin cow had been a "formula that worked the last five years".
"The calves look a treat and they turn off pretty well," he said, adding that the Red Angus adds a bit more fat to them.
"We haven't had a lot of trouble calving so far," he said.
"Fingers crossed and touch wood it stays that way.
"We seem to go pretty well with the Red Angus bull I've got. I love him.
"He's pretty quiet, he gets around alright and gets everybody in calf so we'll see how we go this year."
Ms Morgan said the couple would watch the herd closely until they finish calving at the end of May.
"If they're heifers, we'll have to watch them fairly closely but none of them are heifers this year so there shouldn't be any problems," she said.
Mr Morgan said the dry conditions for calving didn't bother him at all.
"The paddock is pretty ordinary out there but that's quite deliberate," he said.
"We run all our pastures with a regenerative agriculture approach here."
He planned to let his cows with calves at foot to a paddock of multispecies once they'd calved.
"I don't need that feed at the moment because I don't want my cows on lush pasture and too fat for calving," he said.
"I want them turned off a bit so probably two to three weeks ago, I put them over this side of the farm.
"That's pretty much what we do.
"We trim them off and calve them all, essentially calve them and starve them."
On calf health, he said the dry weather was an advantage for calving.
"You can get some wet years where it's just terrible for picking up scours, crypto or all sorts of nasty bugs that give them scours," he said.
Mr Morgan said the split calving system, spring and autumn, didn't suit their operation.
"You just get no time off because you're calving every month," Ms Morgan said.
Mr Morgan said autumn calving now left him with choices, depending on what the markets were doing.
"We'll either turn them off at 10 months as weaners if we can get them up to weight and if the market is right," he said.
"But if the market is not right, we can hold them through two springs.
"So, we put two springs into them and that takes them a little over 500 kilograms.
"Mostly, they go as stores and our stuff tends to be bought by feedlots."
Elaine Knowles, Woolsthorpe, was just at the end of calving her 34 cows.
"It's been a good year," she said.
"It was dry and the calves didn't seem to get sick or anything like that.
"It's been so dry that they didn't pick up any bugs."
Ms Knowles said 34 calves had delivered 35 calves with just one loss, one of the twin calves.
She said she helped three calve, all heifers, and that all the mature cows delivered on their own.
All cows calved outdoors over the dry weeks of February and early March.
She said the herd's milk yields have been affected by the lack of rain.
"They've been better other years with the milking," she said.
"A bit of rain would be nice but I'm giving them hay and they're not really eating it."
Tim Wilson, Labertouche, said his autumn-calving Angus herd was due to start calving Monday, March 18, but he already had a dozen on the ground.
"The weather must have brought them on," he said.
He said the calves delivered so far have been up and going quickly.
