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Overview

Feed for Growth is an exciting programme for farmers providing practical advice, support, resources, and tools to help grow better cows.

Understand what the calf needs

A Farm enterprise is a longer term business model than most people consider, driven by developing better production animals more efficiently.

The first few weeks of life will have the biggest impact on this objective, and therefore the biggest impact on the profitability of your business.

Helping you understand…

  • the critical role of the Pre-weaned animal
  • the benefits of a shorter Age at First Calving (AFC)
  • the Growth Triangle

We’ll show you the importance of the first year of life and how the first 12 weeks are critical. Increase your focus in this area and the benefits can be substantial.

Achieving 24 months AFC will...

Maximise

Fertility
Yield
Longevity

Minimize

Management time
Feeding costs
Space required

The first three months are the most important period in the journey to 24 months AFC.

The Growth Triangle

The unique opportunity will only be realised by creating a positive ‘growth triangle’.

Nutritionally
What to feed, how much to feed

Environmentally
The comfort of the calf, temperature, air speed management

Biologically
The health of the calf. Disease prevention and management. All three need to be in harmony to allow good calf performance.

The three factors of calf performance: health, environment and nutrition

Put a plan together

  • How? Use the online heifer roadmap planning tool
  • How? Use our Farmer guides a to help your planning
  • How? Consider your scenario – what labour do you have? What are you trying to achieve with these animals?

What growth rates do you believe are possible?

What AFC do you want to achieve?

Work with Feed For Growth to create a Heifer Roadmap, and manage success using our tools!

Setting Objectives

A simple set of milestones will help you see the path to efficient management…

  • Weaning target
  • Breeding target
  • Calving target

…all come together to create your calf roadmap.

Three Key Areas

We need to manage three key areas to ensure long term success: HealthEnvironmentNutrition.

  • All are critical for success
  • We have organised our advice and resources around these key areas
  • Download our Farmer Guides for more support
  • Use our helpful Feeding Calculator

Resources

Download our informative Farmer’s Guides, covering everything from dealing with common health problems to feeding and housing your calves

View more


Targets set, how to achieve them?

Consistency is the key

Feeding appropriately and accurately is an enormously important aspect of the nutrition side of the Growth Triangle.

Without a structured approach, it’s very easy to get this wrong.

Useful Resources

We have plenty of useful information available to help you understand and manage the aspects of this task.


Powerful Tools to help you achieve your goals…

  • Our Heifer Roadmap Planning tool
  • Our comprehensive Farmer Guides

Resources

Download our informative Farmer’s Guides, covering everything from dealing with common health problems to feeding and housing your calves.

View more