Any advice for a first timer, both cows and me! They are due to calve mid June and I was wondering if there were things I should be doing, feeding/not feeding, preparing etc. now.
I wish I had been aware of this forum before buying my three calves! I have made soooo many ignorant mistakes that could so easily have been avoided. In a nut shell mistake no. 1 getting three different breeds (because they had been hand raised together and I didn't have the heart to separate them) no.2 not putting them to a bull soon enough (I thought they had to be fully grown, instead of fully grown when they calf) so the consequence of no2 is that I have ended up with three obese cows! I did manage to find three different bulls for them! I believe I am lucky that two have been scanned in calf although there has been bulling and standing between two of them all winter so time will well what's going on there. They have been on restricted grazing over the winter, to the great concern of my neighbour, which seems crazy given the lack of grass and poaching of the land and I have been giving them late cut hay. They have a mineral lick as well.
If any one has advice for feeding and minerals or anything else I should know in the weeks before calving, I would be very grateful if they could let me know.
Thank you