At Har­bro, we’ve been busy under­tak­ing calf audits over the last five months, which have enabled us to do a full eval­u­ation of the farm’s cur­rent calf-rear­ing sys­tem, identi­fy­ing both strengths and weak­nesses.

A calf audit involves an in-depth ques­tion­naire cov­er­ing all aspects of the rear­ing sys­tem from hous­ing and envir­on­ment to nutri­tion and dry cow man­age­ment. The sys­tem is then assessed and scored by one of our trained calf aud­it­ors, who eval­u­ates aspects such as calf com­fort, clean­li­ness, water access­ib­il­ity, and vent­il­a­tion.

The calf audits have been led by two mem­bers of our dairy tech­nical sales team, Rebecca McInnes and Elektra Brown. A report is writ­ten and presen­ted back on farm where pos­it­ives and areas for improve­ment are dis­cussed.

“The key to these reports is to make recom­mend­a­tions which are prac­tical and work for the spe­cific farm. There’s no point sug­gest­ing improve­ments which can’t be imple­men­ted so we work closely with the farm to ensure they are easy changes which are going to have large impacts,” Rebecca McInnes explains.

Weigh­ing

From the calf audits, we’re see­ing pat­terns and gain­ing valu­able insights. One sur­pris­ing insight is that only 25% of farms are reg­u­larly weigh­ing calves. This can eas­ily be done with a weigh tape and can be car­ried out at the same time as other inter­ven­tions, such as pen move­ments or vac­cin­a­tion.

Without this inform­a­tion, any changes made to the sys­tem can’t be eas­ily quan­ti­fied, as there is no bench­mark. Weigh­ing can high­light spe­cific areas of the sys­tem where calves are strug­gling, allow­ing fur­ther invest­ig­a­tion and improve­ments. The pre-wean­ing stage has a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on future health, lacta­tion per­form­ance, and over­all longev­ity. It’s imper­at­ive, there­fore, that all per­son­nel involved in the calf-rear­ing pro­cess are clear on the tar­gets and ensure the calves meet growth tar­gets and achieve a smooth, check-free wean­ing.

Pre-wean­ing calves are also the most effcient, so gains made dur­ing this period mean not hav­ing to spend more money to enable them to catch up later down the line.

Weigh­ing also enables us to look at feed cost/kg live­weight gain.

“We often know our feed cost in pence per litre for the milk­ing cows, but we rarely know the cost/ kg live­weight gain for the calves. Know­ing this enables you to bench­mark batches against each other, as well as allow­ing you to track whether changes to the feed­ing pro­tocol have paid off,” com­ments Elektra Brown.

“For example, if you change to a cheaper milk powder, you’d like to think your cost is decreas­ing, but without track­ing growth rates and cost/kg live­weight gain, the change may mean growth rates drop and the change actu­ally leads to an increased cost/kg live­weight gain.”

Using this met­ric also enables us to see whether man­age­ment changes have had a pos­it­ive impact on growth, thereby redu­cing the cost/kg of live­weight gain and improv­ing prof­it­ab­il­ity for the farm.

Colostrum

One of the pos­it­ive insights from the calf audits is that 75% of farms meas­ure colostrum qual­ity before feed­ing it to calves. All these farms use Brix Refracto­met­ers, which are inex­pens­ive and easy to use.

Rebecca noted: “There’s been a large industry focus on colostrum qual­ity, so it has been great to see the major­ity of farms are meas­ur­ing qual­ity as well as hav­ing clear pro­to­cols for min­imum accept­able levels of colostrum qual­ity, and are using good qual­ity colostrum powders to increase the IgG levels where neces­sary.”

Something we’re noti­cing is that many people have a tar­get to achieve first calv­ing at 24 months, which is a great tar­get, but don’t have addi­tional tar­gets within those 24 months to make sure they’re on track to hit it.

It’s import­ant to break down the 24 months into set peri­ods and set clear, achiev­able growth and health tar­gets within them that every­one on the team under­stands and can sup­port.

Set­ting and work­ing towards tar­gets helps you make the most of the calf’s greater effciency when it’s younger, gives the whole team a clear roadmap so calves stay on track, and allows any devi­ations from the tar­gets to be flagged and invest­ig­ated.

It also sup­ports bet­ter over­all life­time per­form­ance and cre­ates a feed­back loop so you can bench­mark year on year to keep improv­ing per­form­ance and prof­it­ab­il­ity.

Set­ting real­istic, achiev­able tar­gets for your sys­tem is something we can help with.

We have some calf audit slots avail­able for July and August, so get in touch with your Har­bro dairy spe­cial­ist to arrange or find your local spe­cial­ist here.