Calf Feeding

The market is saturated with different milk powders, all with their own niche selling point and most of them promise to provide you with the solution you are looking for (whatever that may be!) I think it is fair to say many farmers look at the oil and protein levels stated on the bag, followed by price per tonne and end up making a relatively uninformed decision.

Having colostrum accessible to calves is imperative to the colostrum feeding program. For reasons such as the cow cannot produce enough colostrum, Colostrum is of low quality, or the freshly calved Cow has not been milked within hours of giving birth.  Calves are essentially born with little to no immunity. Therefore, the quality of colostrum is essential for disease prevention during the first weeks of a calf’s life.

The survival of replacement calves and heifers, the subsequent survival of lactating dairy cows in each lactation and the efficient conversion of feed into milk, all contribute to the environmental impact of dairy production.

The benefits of feeding a high fat milk replacer:

1. Additional energy, for every 5% increase in oil the energy density of the powder is increased by 6%.
2. Reduced scours, energy in milk replacer comes from either fat or carbohydrate (oil or lactose), high fat milk replacers have lower lactose, naturally lowering their osmolality and reducing incidence of scour. 
3. Improved resilience, during periods of stress, disease challenge or low temperatures the calf’s energy requirement increases. Calves have very little body fat stored and rely on a constant supply of energy meaning increased requirements are more easily met with a high fat milk replacer. 

Calves are more susceptible to cold stress than older animals. This is because they have lower body fat reserves and a larger surface area to body mass ratio which causes them to lose body heat more rapidly.

In recent years there has been a significant push to calve heifers younger to become more efficient. The benefits of this have been well documented including significantly reducing rearing costs, which account as one of the largest costs on farm.

With rising costs of production, including energy, water and milk replacers, farmers may be tempted to look for potential savings when it comes to feeding calves.

Whether finding yourself in the position of considering moving from milk replacer to whole milk, or rethinking how you feed whole milk, pasteurisation must be explored.

Over the past year dairy commodity markets have shown unprecedented volatility, and we have experienced some ingredients, such as skimmed milk powder and sweet whey powder, reaching historically high levels. This coupled with increasing vegetable oil prices mean that the cost of calf milk replacer (CMR) has continued to rise, which inevitably adds cost to calf rearing systems.

Making the most of grass, planning winter forage ahead of time and focusing on heifers are three non-negotiables for a profitable suckler business this year and longer-term.

In episode seven of the Wynnstay Agri-hub podcast, Tony and I discuss what suckler beef businesses should focus on to enable profitability. Although input costs are unprecedentedly high, the current price of beef is buoyant, with good cull cow, finishing and store beef prices.

Jon Miller of Hollins Farm has been using Bloom milk replacer for the last two and a half years and says "it is by far the best milk replacer we have been on".  The heifers have performed exceptionally well on it and we are having heifers calve down at 24 months yielding 34.6L with the highest achieving 42L at 43 DIM, with a first lactation pregnancy rate of 36.2% and a whole herd pregnancy rate of 29% from heifers that have been reared on Bloom, something which they are immensely proud of.

Rob Noad of Woodhouse Farm says "Stellar is delivering the growth rates we want, and calves do love consistency and routine, so the winning combination of a good milk replacer product fed accurately through an automated machine makes such a difference".