Average daily gain and cattle weighing

Herd performance depends on animals with appropriate body development. That is why it is important to monitor their average daily gain. AGYE provides weighing tools to measure your cattle and record and compare data.

Definition of average daily gain

Average daily gain (ADG) indicates an animal’s growth rate between two ages and helps monitor nutritional performance on the farm. It can be calculated for one animal or a group.

How is average daily gain measured in cattle?

To calculate ADG over a period, subtract the animal’s starting weight from its final weight, then divide the difference by the number of days in that period. Animals need to be weighed at fixed ages to compare results between years.

Standards exist for comparing your dairy herd’s ADG with other farms. For cattle, ADG 120 and ADG 210 refer to periods of up to 120 and 210 days respectively.

How can herd ADG be improved?

A dairy animal’s average daily gain is influenced by two factors:

• the cow’s feeding during her final month of gestation;
• the quantity of milk fed to the calf.

The French source states a target heifer ADG of 900 g/day, whatever the planned age at calving, to avoid delayed growth. It describes 7–8 litres of whole milk per day from the end of the second week to meet energy requirements.

It then describes concentrate supplementation during weaning to improve results and accustom calves to solid feed at around three months, ranging from 500 g/day to 2 kg once weaned.