A Western Victorian dairy farm has reduced calf mortality rates and improved heifer growth rates by changing its calf-rearing system.
Changes included an improved calf-rearing shed, individual feeding, measuring colostrum quality, feeding fortified milk, and a different way of handling calves from assisted births.
Jessa and Geoff Fleming farm 170 hectares (plus a 72ha outpaddock) at Gorae West, Vic. This season they aim to peak at 250 cows, down from 280 last season due to the lower milk price.
The farm was bought in 2007 with Geoff's parents Peter and Gloria Thomas and was expanded in 2009 through the purchase of a neighbouring property, which is now the centre of the operation.
The Flemings split calve ù about 60 per cent in the autumn (March-June) and 40 per cent in the spring (September-November). Split calving was introduced after a poor conception rate one season and has helped them retain high-producing cows that fail to get into calf by being able to drop them into the next calving.
"We also average fairly good production for our inputs ù so split calving is easier on the facilities and on us as owner operators," Mrs Fleming said.
The farm's labour comprises the Flemings and one casual worker, who helps with milking and maintenance.
Their herd comprises crossbred Holsteins and Jerseys as well as some stud Holsteins. The farm system is grass based with moderate levels of feeding. Last season cows were fed 1.8 tonnes of grain for the lactation. Production averages 8000 litres or about 600 kilograms of milk solids per cow per lactation, though was down last season due to dry conditions.
The farm herd tests every two months and uses those results to help make herd decisions, including about breeding and culls.
Mrs Fleming said she decided to look in more detail at their calf-rearing system after seeing a presentation by vet Dr Gemma Chuck at the Australian Dairy Conference in early 2014.
The couple had been rearing calves in six small purpose-built calf rearing pens in a shed on the property bought in 2009.
"The pens were quite dark, there was little ventilation and we struggled a bit," Mrs Fleming said.
"At peak, we had about 30 per cent of the calves that went into the shed that needed treating."
Calves were fed through over-the-gate group feeders. "We tried to keep the milk up to them," Mrs Fleming said. "We fed them twice a day and up to eight litres a day.
"But we were weaning them, vaccinating them and popping them out (to the paddocks) on the same day, and they really struggled afterwards. For a couple of months after the calves were weaned, they would go backwards."
They also often lost calves. Mortality rates were five to 10 per cent during calf rearing and about another two per cent after weaning.
Mrs Fleming said being a small family-run operation, calf rearing had been lower on the priority list than other tasks on the farm such as milking.
But listening to Dr Chuck changed that. "I listened to Gemma Chuck talk about the improvements that could be made and the growth that followed," Mrs Fleming said.
"You get big heifers that excel due to that extra 50 kilograms of body weight û and how much milk that gives you over the lactation and the increase in fertility.
"It tied in for me that the better we can grow our calves, the more milk these cows will give û for just a little bit more work in the early days."
The Flemings discussed and researched the options and asked Dr Chuck, who worked with The Vet Group, to visit and inspect the calf-rearing system.
"I thought we didn't do too bad a job calf rearing," Mrs Fleming said.
"It wasn't until we realised that a lot of questions she (Dr Chuck) was asking, we couldn't answer.
"And when she had a look at the facilities, it really started to highlight that they were not appropriate facilities to rear the best heifers possible.
"Then when you look at the waste of money in treatments, the wasted growth û it really became about being efficient, so we could ultimately save money and reap more rewards once they were milking."
The Flemings retrofitted an existing hay shed on the farm to make a new calf-rearing facility. It is divided into six pens, each with the capacity to hold 10 calves.
The shed is open on one wide side. The rear side has a false wall about a metre high and about 30 centimetres from the external wall. The bottom part of the back wall has been cut away to a height just below the false wall. This allows ventilation through the shed.
Mrs Fleming said increased ventilation removed the smell of urea from the shed and meant the calves had access to fresh air. But the design also meant the temperature in the calf pens was more consistent at calf level and there were no draughts in the pens.
The pens are separated by 1.5 metre-high partitions that prevent nose-to-nose contact between calves in different pens. "So each pen is basically like a full quarantine pen," Mrs Fleming said.
"It works really well. We had a suspected salmonella calf in one pen in October last year. We treated her and we blanket treated the calves in that pen with electrolytes and it was contained."
The open side of each calf pen has a gate and 10 custom-built calf-size head-locking bails. Calves are now fed using individual feeders. Five feeders are mounted onto a bracket and placed outside the bails.
The Flemings have four of these bracket-mounted set-of-five feeders. The usual procedure is to place two of the five-set feeders on the gates of one pen, fill the feeders using a home-made milk taxi with a diesel pump, lock in the 10 calves, and then move on to the next pen and repeat the process, before going back to check on the first pen of calves, which can be unlocked if they have finished feeding.
Mrs Fleming said the system was easier to manage and better for monitoring individual calves than the old group feeders.
"In that system, I used to try to monitor them but you're standing over the gate, your wrestling them, getting head butts and hurt fingers," she said.
"I can now monitor to ensure each calf is feeding OK. You can see straight away a calf that's not interested in feeding and you can mark her. We take note and if she is doing that at a second feed, we know something is up."
It also allowed the Flemings to give additional milk to bigger-framed calves from their big Holsteins.
Vaccinating calves was also easier. "I lock their heads in, and while they are having their milk, I walk around into the pen and I vaccinate about 10 calves in 30 seconds," Mrs Fleming said.
The bails cost about $200/bail û all up about $13,000 delivered, while the tin and gravel for the pens, which the Flemings constructed themselves, was about $5000.
Mrs Fleming said they debated about spending the money on the calf facility. "But now it's something I wished we had done five years ago," she said.
"The amount of calves we would have saved, the vet bills, the drugs and the growth on the calves, it would have paid for itself easily in five years."
Another investment has also paid for itself many times over ù a brix refractometer bought for $40 to measure colostrum quality.
Dr Chuck had recommended they measure their colostrum quality. "We knew about the importance of colostrum but it wasn't until we started to test the colostrum of the cows that we realised that we might have had only one in four cows that had suitable colostrum," Mrs Fleming said.
They have also changed the system of picking up calves to ensure most receive good quantities of high-quality colostrum as soon as possible after birth.
The Flemings used to tube feed colostrum to every calf in the paddock. "The issue I had with that was that I am not physically strong and quite often the calves would slip around and get out of my grasp and we were having issues with pneumonia and chest infections a couple of days later," Mrs Fleming said.
"This was really frustrating because we were trying to do the right thing and people were saying tubing was the way to do it, but I couldn't physically hold them most of the time."
Calves are now collected twice a day (and up to three times a day at calving peak).
"We take the calves, we spray their navels straight away, we tag them, and we put them into the calf shed," Mrs Fleming said.
The cows are run through the dairy, their teats are washed and disinfected with teat wipes, and their colostrum is collected. It takes about 15 minutes a day to run the fresh cows through the dairy to harvest the colostrum. The cows then go to a holding paddock and join the milking herd after milking. This enables the Flemings to keep a close eye on the fresh cows for any metabolic issues.
The colostrum is then tested. If it is high quality, it is hand-fed fresh to the calf from a Perfect Udder bag connected with its specialised teat or a handheld feeder with a peach teat, the same teats used on the feeders in the pens.
"We aim for 2-4 litres in the first 12 hours and another 2-4 litres between 12 and 24 hours," Mrs Fleming said.
"We do the best we can, we are a family, we are like any other dairy farm. Sometimes it doesn't happen ù sometimes they might not get colostrum until they are 18 hours old and so be it ù at least we are trying." Any calf older than 24 hours is fed on lower quality colostrum and marked and monitored but that is usually only one or two in any calving period.
Excess quality colostrum is frozen using Perfect Udder bags bought through the Vet Group. These bags, developed after extensive research, allow colostrum to be collected, stored, heat treated, frozen and re-heated in one container, limiting the growth of spoilage bacteria. Tubes and teats can be connected to the bags to allow colostrum to be fed to the calf.
The Flemings treat excess quality colostrum with potassium sorbate. They record the date, the quality and the number of the cow from which the colostrum came on the bag. This allows quick identification of suspect colostrum should a cow come down with salmonella a few days later.
Mrs Fleming said during calving they aimed to have on hand 2-3 bags of fresh colostrum and good supplies in the freezer. At the end of the last autumn calving, they had about 60 litres of colostrum in the freezer, ready for the spring calving.
Colostrum is kept for no longer than six months.
The cows are treated with the rotovac corona vaccination before calving. This improves the quality of the colostrum by allowing the cows to raise antibodies against E. coli adhesion F5 (K99) antigen, rotavirus and coronavirus.
The Flemings sell some of their excess colostrum. "We've got a good reputation, people know we have used the rotovac corona vaccination, and they know that it is tested," Mrs Fleming said.
The focus on feeding quality colostrum as soon as possible has been successful. The Flemings lost only one calf in their autumn calving and that calf missed out on getting supplemented colostrum.
"To go from having 30 per cent of calves sick and losing 10 per cent to having one sick calf in 60, and having that one calf because she didn't get colostrum, shows it works," Mrs Fleming said.
The Flemings also use fortified or accelerated milk feeding, a system advocated by Dr Chuck.
Under this system, milk powder is added to the liquid milk, increasing the milk solids and nutritional quality of the milk.
Calves receive on average two liquid litres of fortified milk in the morning and two liquid litres at night. This is equivalent nutritionally to eight litres of regular milk.
Calves have ad lib access to straw and drinking water. "That's really crucial because they do drink a lot of water (on the fortified milking regime)," Mrs Fleming said.
The calves also have ad lib access to Ridleys calf meal for the first 4-6 weeks and are then slowly transitioned to Ridleys calf rearer pellets.
Between 8-10 weeks, the amount of milk is gradually reduced, as the calves are slowly weaned across about 10 days. "Everything is gradual, we give the calves time to adjust," Mrs Fleming said.
The Flemings first implemented fortified feeding in autumn 2014 and the first lot of heifers raised under this system calved last autumn at 21 months.
"They calved young and were absolutely fantastic," Mrs Fleming said. "They have come in the same size as a lot of the older ones ù and they haven't looked back. They are all producing well and are above the herd average."
The individual feeding means the heifer groups are more consistent and the system means they are no longer seeing heifers drop back when they are weaned.
Heifers are now reaching their target weights for joining earlier. The Flemings aim to have their Holsteins at 350 kilograms, their crossbreeds at 300-320kg and their Jerseys at 280kg for joining.
The Flemings are also using a new method to handle calves from assisted births. "We had a vet come out in July last year to assist a calving," Mrs Fleming said.
"The calf was a little slow to get going û it had been a fairly tight pull calf û and I asked should we hang it, which is what everyone used to do.
"He said never hang a calf. They have done research that shows it is the stomach contents that comes out and it puts pressure on the diaphragm and it actually delays breathing.
"He put the calf in the 'recovery' position. Then he pinched inside the nostrils on a pressure point and the calf put its head up and sucked in air and was instantly more alert."
For any birth that requires assistance (about 3-4 per cent), the Flemings now take the calf, spray its navel, put it onto clean ground or onto a towel and put it into a position with its back legs pulled forward beside it and its front legs bent so it is propped up and tilting slightly forwards.
"There's a huge difference, the calves are more alert," Mrs Fleming said. "We don't have issues, even with the breech births, and we don't have issues with gurgly lungs.
"It is something I can do with my bad back. I can manoeuvre the legs, put the legs under, make sure they are sitting upright. It is easier ù a lot of women can do it without physically stressing themselves.
"Just because people have always done it one way doesn't mean that a new way of doing it won't be better."
The Flemings calf-rearing system is now an all-in all-out system. So calves of the same age are kept and reared together in small groups, rather than having calves added and removed from groups.
Both the Flemings and their employee know the system and communicate with each other to ensure everyone knows what needs to be done with the calves.
The higher number of heifer calves has also created an extra income stream. Excess heifers are sold for about $250 each at a week old. One buyer commented that the heifers he had bought were doing well compared with some of those from other farms, Mrs Fleming said.
