Our calves getting bigger ...due to climate change!

But putting cows in sheds early due to bad weather is costing farmers more

DAIRY cows are giving birth to ‘giant’ calves this year due in part to climate change, says a leading vet.

Up to 1.3 million dairy calves will be born this spring with around 50% of dairy cows calving between January and the end of this month, according to Teagasc, the Agriculture and Food Development Authority.

The president of Veterinary Ireland Hazel Mullins, who farms at Carrignavar, Co. Cork, said that having spoken to ‘a lot of colleagues’, it seems calves ‘are a little bit bigger’.

The vet told RTÉ’s Countrywide: ‘On my own farm, definitely the Friesian bull calves are definitely sizeable and I think that there could be different factors involved. It could be that it’s a long winter; cows are being put into the sheds early because remember Storm Babet hit us last October and a lot of cows had to come in early as normally we wouldn’t have to house them until November.’

She said a change in cows’ diets from grass to silage because they were inside meant that they did not produce as much milk.

‘They dried themselves off, so a lot of cows have long dry periods. I wonder is that affecting the size of the calf, as the cow hasn’t been milking as long so there’s been more energy going in to producing that calf. We’re also seeing effects of a long dry period, long winter and retained placentas, probably more milk fevers and cows are probably over-conditioned so there are all these knock-on effects of weather and that’s the circle of farming,’ she said.

Denis Drennan, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, agreed that ‘cows did have to be housed earlier last year as the weather was bad since last June’. He said: ‘So as a result the competitive advantage of grassfed cattle disappeared as silage and concentrated nuts, labour and electricity are a lot more

‘Weather was bad since last June’

expensive. If the cost of producing milk is less than what farmers are being paid per litre, many are going to let cows dry themselves for longer, for example for four months instead of two, which in turn will lead to a bigger calf.’

Donal Sheehan, a farmer in Castlelyons, Co. Cork, said he has not found calves exceptionally big this year ‘but I imagine they could be due to the long dry period’.