Owen and Eileen O’Sullivan farm at Currow near Castleisland in Co. Kerry where they milk a spring calving herd of 100 cows. The Currow City pedigree Holstein herd averages 8,000 litres at 600 kgs of milk solids per cow.
Owen is an active member of the Kerry Holstein Friesian Breeders Club. He supplies milk to Kerry Coop, and his herd is 100% North American genetics. The TMR diet for this high yielding herd includes silage, straw, home grown forage maize and a mineral vitamin supplement.
Their children, Sean and Sarah recently came first and second in their respective classes at the Kingdom County Fair held during May.
Owen inseminates cows for six weeks and then uses Hereford bulls to get the remainder of the herd in calf. All male calves and female Herefords are kept for 12 months and then sold as stores.
Owen has been an Animax customer for nearly four years [stated in 2019]. He says “Before I began using Tracesure Cattle with Copper my cows had dull coats and milk fever was a serious problem in the herd. Now they have healthy coats and milk fever is no longer a problem”.
He double boluses twice a year; in December at drying off and in April pre-breeding. When asked what difference he has seen in his herd since using Tracesure Cattle with Copper boluses, Owen says, “Retained afterbirths, especially in twin births, is a thing of the past.”
Owen continues “We have also noticed stronger standing heats which have certainly led to a tighter calving pattern. My calves seem more vigorous at birth and we have had no outbreaks of scours for the past three years”.
Calves are bolused with Tracesure Calf with Copper at weaning and again, on the same day as the cows, at drying off. Owen says, “I choose Tracesure Calf with Copper for better performance at grass with less need to feed more concentrates. Calves will then hit their target weight gain of 1.5kg a day more quickly without compromising the cow condition score.”
A single Tracesure Calf with Copper application, which consists of one selenium, iodine and cobalt bolus and one copper needle bolus, is ideally suited to bridge the energy gap of dairy heifer calves at weaning, because they supplement for six months. This is vitally important to the performance of calves as this can be a stressful period in their young lives.
