An Irish dairy farm has resolved calf health and performance challenges by rearing calves in dedicated pens throughout the pre-weaning period and switching to a skim-based milk replacer from a whey-based formula.
Kenny Roberts sought help from Bonanza Calf Nutrition and Glanbia after a bout of cryptosporidiosis and bloat in young calves. Kenny milks 127 Montebeliarde and Montebeliarde-cross cows at Rathangan, Co. Kildare, with milk supplied to Glanbia.
With that number of cows he opted for an automatic calf feeder, to make rearing as labour-efficient as possible, and, for the first two seasons, he fed a whey-based replacer through that machine.
A pen system was created, with a ‘training’ pen for 18 calves with these calves later moved to one of two pens with capacity for 36 animals. Despite good attention to detail, calves did not thrive and there were challenges with bloat and crypto.
Fighting challenges with automatic feeding systems
Kenny put some thought into improvements and, after much research, for his third season of using the feeder, he turned to Compumate, a skim-based milk replacer specifically designed for computer feeders.
On the recommendation of his Glanbia regional business manager, Enda Quinn, Kenny discussed this with Joe Murphy of Bonanza Calf Nutrition, the company which manufactures Compumate.
“It mixes perfectly and goes through the machine without a hiccup,” said Kenny.
Joe formulated a new feed plan for Kenny, which included incorporating apple cider vinegar as recommended by a farmer.
“We increased the initial volume of replacer fed to calves and reduced the total days on the feeder by one week,” Joe explained.
This meant that calves would be fed less milk replacer throughout the pre-weaning period. This allowed older calves to be moved out of the shed more quickly, creating space for later-born calves to feed on the machine.
“Having less calves in the shed, particularly later in the season, can help to reduce the risk of pneumonia,” commented Joe.
This was not the only change that Kenny made with advice from Joe. By removing the training pen, calves had fewer health challenges as the rearing season progressed.
“It removed the major end-of-year problems I was getting,” stated Kenny.
Calves were free of crypto for the first time in a number of years. As calves were moved into a pen and remained there until weaning, there wasn’t a continuous flow of traffic through the one pen, building the level of bugs in the environment, Joe points out.
“In a compact-calving system, calves will be quite similar in age so pens fill up fast and training pens can be more of a challenge than anything,” he said.
Kenny retains all his calves so the dual-purpose Montebeliarde is well suited to that system. Calves have good confirmation for a calf-to-beef system while replacements are efficient milkers. Cows produce approximately 500kg/year milk solids from a concentrate input of 750-1,000kg.
‘More substance to them’
Kenny, who is part of the Glanbia Twenty20 Club, uses AI for the first six weeks, targeting his best milkers for dairy replacements and the rest for beef.
This is gradually replaced with Gain Wean ‘N’ Build as the calves get older and they remain on this until they are introduced to grass, when the volume fed is reduced to 1kg/head/day with volume decreasing over a period of time until it is removed from the diet in early July.
At grazing, calves are initially offered heavy covers with stem prior to grazing silage aftermaths.
“The transition to grass was smooth as they seemed to settle quickly into the grazing routine. Calves thrived very well, with more substance to them,” said Kenny, reflecting on the 2020 season.
The new milk replacer and the removal of the training pen were not the only changes that Kenny introduced. Early in the season, Joe had identified that inconsistent water pressure was impacting on calf thrive. And, three weeks into calving, Kenny disbudded the older calves, just prior to a storm.
This resulted in looseness in the calves which, with the help of Bonanza Calf Nutrition, Kenny identified as rotavirus, most likely a result of the stress of the disbudding combined with poor weather. Although calves were not very ill, the issue was quickly resolved.
A header tank was installed and Transformula, a transition milk replacer, was introduced to help improve and settle the intestinal upset in calves. Transformula provides calves with their dietary needs following colostrum.
As it contains an abundance of added ingredients to help gut health and development, it was the perfect solution to help Kenny’s calves recover from their infectious gut challenge, says Joe.
“Calves transferred back to Compumate once settled after their stressful period without upset,” he stated. “This change is not an issue in terms of dietary stress and calves took no setback from the stressful events.”
Kenny did not have a repeat of the health problem when he disbudded later-born calves ahead of a better weather forecast.
“This is an excellent demonstration that, if a stressful event is going to be put on a calf such as disbudding, all other conditions need to be perfect,” said Joe.
Kenny says he is delighted he introduced Compumate and benefitted from the expertise that came with it.
“I won’t be looking beyond Compumate to feed calves this coming season,” he concluded.
Further information
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