Consistency in a changing world

We can feel perplexed by today’s rapidly-changing world, imagine how change can stress a young vulnerable calf. Being born with a flight instinct of the wild, newborns tend to struggle with their new environment, social interactions, the weather, the people who care for them and diet.

I know from all my hands-on years of rearing thousands of calves that the more changes we make, the more chance that we have to weaken the immune defence and severity of nutritional scour and losses in daily weight gains. Keeping everything the same every day is one of the best practises that we should use in our calf rearing, as this helps minimise negative impacts on a calf’s health and digestive track. One thing that we can control is the calf milk replacer (CMR) that we choose to feed. Whole milk CMRs can have some inconsistencies through the manufacturing process they go through, as well as in the raw materials that are used. Whole milk CMRs can vary from batch to batch. They can be ever so slight, but be quite noticeable for the rearer with resulting nutritional scours and health risks that can show up not long after a calf has been fed. For farmers wanting a strong curding option, whole milk is the way to go but it can be variable and carries its own risks compared to milk replacer. Poorly-digested whole milk protein which can occur in ‘over feeders’ or an interference in the curding process in the abomasum (the true stomach of a young calf). When undigested protein passes out of the abomasum and into the small intestine too quickly, it can feed harmful bacteria, resulting in scours in young calves. A white scour that is often seen is usually from undigested protein and often we will see this from calves that have over-fed on whole milk. With a premium whey-based, noncurding CMR specifically formulated for our New Zealand calves, the curd process has been taken away and we are left with a very consistent by-product that is not dependent on something going wrong in the dairy factory. A whey-based calf milk replacer like Reliance Power Whey is one that has been manufactured from a consistent and inevitable whey supply from the cheese industry and made to a human food standard that eliminates variability for those calves that are facing challenges daily. A premium non-curding whey milk replacer does not need to curd and is easily digested, so is a reliably safe, consistent and economical option for both the rearer and dairy farmer — especially when milk payouts are strong. For rearers looking for more consistency and less variability, Reliance Power Whey can be a very good economical option. It goes handin-hand with best practises on farm to produce a healthy, happy calf that reaches targets and with the perfect complement of a high-quality calf feed, you have a great recipe for success.

| Keeping everything the same every day is one of the best practises in calf rearing.

For more information, contact your Farmlands Technical Field Officer, or the friendly team at your local Farmlands store.

Article supplied by Karen Fraser, Technical Specialist