A herd health and production management plan

Dr Danie Odendaal, director of the Veterinarian network, spoke to Glenneis Kriel about what to consider when drawing up a herd health and production management plan for sheep and cattle. His advice can be applied to most other livestock.

- Glenneis Kriel

Developing a production calendar can be a daunting task, as there are so many variables to consider. The trick is to keep it simple, and that’s exactly what Dr Danie Odendaal, founder and director of the Veterinarian Network (V-Net), has done with the V-Plan herd management plan, which he has designed and improved over the past 30 years.

According to Odendaal, his V-Plan is based on two essential principles:

• Livestock have a specific reproductive cycle that must be maintained and optimised to unlock the full income potential of a herd/flock.

• Seasonality affects feed availability.

Beef cows have a gestation period of nine months and are dry for three months before being impregnated again, whereas sheep have a gestation period of only five months. In the past, sheep were left to recover for seven months before being placed with rams again; these days, most farmers have shortened the recovery period after lambing to three months. In these intensive breeding systems, sheep reproduce every eight months, or three times over a two-year period.

Odendaal says a few farmers are shortening the recovery after lambing to two months, but he advises against this, as it requires extraordinarily intensive feed management and takes a toll on ewes and their offspring in the long run.

The reproductive cycle can be divided into different stages, based on changes in the animals’ dietary needs, management and health requirements; these stages are calving, mating, weaning and, for cows, the dry period. For cows, each of these stages will be, on average, three months long within a 12-month production cycle.

With sheep, there are two stages: lambing and mating. The period between stages will differ from three to seven months, depending on the intensity of the production system (one lambing season per year or three in a two-year cycle).