EweFirst

29/12/2025

Bull breakdowns are an important cause of poor reproductive performance. Make sure you take the time to check your bull team remain sound during mating. This requires watching for long enough to see that bulls are not lame or injured and waiting to check that they can successfully mount and mate a cow. Taking 10 minutes out of your day may save some pain come scanning time and hopefully you all have a contingency plan to remedy any issues that you identify!

25/11/2025

🙌🏼

Message we got from a Southland farmer this week - the power of monitoring!!

"Retested lambs a fortnight later. Egg counts still low and zero for nematodirus. So now we'll just drench at weaning. Such a win win win. With the main win being we went to the lake boating yesterday instead of doing stock work. True story. You're welcome to use that in your chats!"

14/11/2025

Preweaning drenching...

Preweaning drenches have long been touted as a necessity in Southland, particularly due to concerns with Nematodirus, but with weaning getting earlier and earlier is there still the need for this drench? Much of the focus of the importance for preweaning drenches came about as lambs were being weaned in January (as was common 20 years ago). Now most lambs are weaned in December, with many in early December or even as early as late November. Is the preweaning drench, often done a month before weaning, still important? Arguably not.

The need for a preweaning drench (and when to do so) should be a seasonal decision. Factors such as predicted weaning date, pasture covers, ewe condition, FECs from lambs and what lambs look like should all be considered. If a preweaning drench is deemed necessary, aiming for 4 weeks before weaning was always a practical guideline, but maybe 2 weeks is more appropriate in some circumstances. This ensures lambs should still be outside WHPs and avoids the need for a drench at weaning, thus easing the weaning workload. I appreciate this may mean another yarding for drenching pre-xmas but this may still work?

Drenching to a calendar or prescribed set of ideas or 'what we always do' should be a thing of the past. Use your stock sense, pasture knowledge and tools available to make an informed decision and help avoid wasting your money on unnecessary drenches.

Note: I appreciate that this spring may be a year when an early preweaning drench is necessary - for many Southland sheep farmers low pasture covers and poor ewe condition may make this worthwhile. These factors may also mean early weaning is a consideration for less competition and improved lamb growth - lots to ponder...

Wormwise DAGI Beef + Lamb New Zealand Southern South Island

24/10/2025

This is relevant again given the power outage affecting many in the Southland region. Lactating cows are most at risk, please share around.

Beef post - water intoxication

I have recently been made aware of another case of water poisoning in some beef cows. This is the second case I have had involvement with and I thought it was worth sharing to try and avoid it happening to others.

This happens after a prolonged period without water, 2-3 days in hot weather is likely to be enough in lactating beef cows. Sudden unrestricted access to water following this can cause deaths as a result of changing sodium concentrations in the blood causing the brain to swell and red blood cells to rupture. Neurological symptoms may also be noticed.

Little can practically be done for these animals once they are affected so prevention is much more important. First we need to ensure stock don't go for prolonged periods without water - especially lactating cattle, but secondly, if this does happen, we need to avoid giving them free access to water after the period of water restriction.
Avoiding free access is not easy and is not forefront of mind if you find cows without water (the first thing you are inclined to do is give them free access!). Practically this may mean standing at the trough and moving cattle along after having a small drink, but this is likley to be difficult also. Dehydration can also be deadly so we need to ensure they get some water - just not too much...!
Has anyone else had practical experience at limiting access to water in thirsty beef cows? What has worked for you?

Share this with your friends that have cattle - lets avoid more cattle succumbing to the poisonous affects of water!

19/10/2025

I’m interested in any early feedback/anecdotes/trial results on multimin that was used in ewes prelambing this year. I know a lot of it was used and I’m hearing a few farm trials have been done in different parts of the country.

We have 2 trials underway but it’s still too early for any results for us yet.

I have heard anecdotally from a couple of farmers that deaths in treated mobs appeared to be significantly less than normal.

Have you noticed anything?

16/09/2025

Poll results:

The sample size isnt massive, but as I suspected - less than half of you are vaccinating beef cows prior to calving against clostridial disease. Interestingly 16% don't vaccinate against clostridial disease at all.

Vaccinating the cows prior to calving would boost their immunity and increase the antibodies going into their colostrum. Assuming the calf receives adequate colostrum, this would then provide passive protection to the calf that could last up to 12 weeks. This would have the benefit of ensuring the cow has adequate protection during one of the periods she is most at risk (bruising during birth is a risk for clostridial infections). If calf marking is performed within 12 weeks, the calf would also be protected during this time from the risk of tetanus.

As far as costs go, clostridial vaccination is one of the cheapest vaccines. At current prices (based on $1200 weaner calf), for every 100 cows vaccinated with 5-in-1, you would only need to save one calf every 17 years to cover the cost!

If choosing the superior protection of Covexin 10-in-1, you would still only need to save one every 8 years (for every 100 cows vaccinated).

17/08/2025

I frequently witness heifers being starved behind a wire for fear of creating a calf that becomes “too big” and gets stuck.
The reality is that calf size has more to do with the genetics of the sire than what you’re feeding in late gestation. In fact, under feeding causes more problems than over feeding! In my experience, poorly grown heifers create a significant number of the calving problems vets see, much more than well grown and well fed “fat” heifers.
Calving heifers behind a wire can be useful for management but they should still be fully fed! Limiting feed intake is more likely to result in negative outcomes than it is positive ones - low energy, poor quality colostrum, lower milk yield etc. The foetus is a parasite in late pregnancy, taking ‘first-dibs’ on what nutrients it can - so what are you actually achieving?!

The heifers in this photo are being fed adlib, are well grown and calving without trouble.

11/08/2025

Ever wished you could get an idea of the level of pasture contamination when it comes to internal parasites? What about knowing which paddock is likely to be less risky from a drench resistance point of view?
DAGI is a new app that is offering all of this and they are looking for farmers to trial it! Sign up to the webinar on tonight to learn more

FARMERS 🧑‍🌾
Tonight is the night! Your ‘Introduction to DAGI’ webinar starts at 7pm - pop that reminder alarm on your phone now 📱

If you’ve signed up via our website you should have received an email with the link to the Teams meeting. 💻
If you’d like to join us but haven’t got round to signing up, flick us an email at [email protected] and we’ll get you sorted. 👌🏼

See you later! 🐑

03/08/2025

Is Multimin the golden bullet for lamb survival and growth?!

On the back of recent research we have seen large uptake on pre-lamb treatments with Multimin this year.

Multimin has been around for a while but has previously only been licenced for cattle. The research in cattle has shown significant impacts on fertility, mastitis prevention and calf illness/mortality.

New research in sheep carried out in Australia and then repeated in Gisborne and North Canterbury has shown some very promising impacts on lamb survival and weaning weights:

- North Canterbury results showed on average an extra 5.8kg of lamb weaned per ewe treated
- Gisborne results showed on average an extra 3.75kg of lamb weaned per ewe treated
- Australia results showed tailing percentage increase 9% and weaning weight increase 2.3kg

On top of this there was improvements in ewe survival and ewe weaning weights.

All treated ewes already had adequate mineral levels (were not deficient) and the control ewes in the North Canterbury trial still got a multimineral drench. Despite this, the results from Multimin injection were remarkably better.

The product for sheep is available with and without copper and otherwise includes Selenium, Zinc and Manganese. Much of the impact is being put down to the benefits on the immune system during this stressful time on the ewe.

The injection is given 4 weeks pre-lamb as a 1ml/50kg dose under the skin. Get in touch with your vet if you would like to know more.

29/07/2025

Another year, another excellent line up of topics at our annual winter woollies. See you tomorrow in Riversdale and Thursday in Mossburn.
A great free event for all our loyal clients.

Don't forget about our winter woolies seminars this week.
look forward to seeing you there.

21/07/2025

Wondering where those ram lambs you used over the hoggets ended up? Answer: New World and subsequently the consumers plate.
Is this an issue that needs addressed more widely? I appreciate there has been some work done to improve this - but mainly for the export market as I understand it. Headwaters and Lumina lamb are doing their part too but the average consumer in NZ is left with some serious doubt about the quality of their eating experience. Should an 11 month old ram lamb be marketed as lamb to the consumer? Is this tarnishing the brand? Interested in your thoughts

13/07/2025

🐂 Beef post 🐂

I’ve been thinking…

With a record bull sale season now behind us and beef commodity prices at all time highs will we start to see the traditional role of the beef cow change?

Whilst there will always be a time and a place for cattle grooming pastures to maintain quality, does the cow still deserve her spot as a second class citizen for much of the year?

There has been crazy money spent on bulls by commercial beef operations chasing superior genetics for their herd this season. Returns for beef have helped fund this and helped justify investing the extra $$$. But are we likely to see the genetic potential of these purchases realised? Do the prices we’ve seen this year justify feeding our beef cows better? Would the money spent on ‘superior’ genetics be better spent on extra feed and would this get better return on investment?

Take a bull purchased for $16k over another one purchased for $10k. Imagine this $6k spent on ensuring the cow is fed well in late pregnancy and lactation. In many cases there is 50+kg of calf weaning weight that is never realised due to how the cow (and calf) is being fed at critical times. Add on the other benefits of well fed cows - less health issues, better reproductive performance - and you start to understand my point.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the benefits of investing in superior genetics (I come from a stud cattle family background) but should the goal not be to realise as much of this genetic potential as possible? If the cow is to continue to be treated as a second class citizen, can we truly justify chasing ‘superior’ genetics over an average bull with a decent balance of breeding values focused on what we get paid for?

Ask yourself is it the genetics of your herd or your management that is the biggest limiting factor in how your cattle perform? Is there a place for feeding the cows better in our current market?

Keen to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Note: This post is designed to spark discussion, I appreciate not all cows are treated this way and for those of you achieving weaning weights in excess of 260kg I imagine your cows are being well fed already.