The decision to completely overhaul the calf rearing system, build a new shed and install an automatic feeder might have been a significant financial investment, but it was always about reducing the workload for Cohuna dairy farmers Greg and Krissy Goulding.
“We built the shed because we are not getting any younger and we really wanted to make things easier moving forward,” Greg said.
Milking about 550 Aussie Reds and calving twice a year means come calving time, there is always a significant amount of manual labour, predominately completed by Krissy.
“It had been on our radar for a while to improve our calf rearing set-up but we had been saving up and wanted to complete the job through cashflow, although as usual the cost did blow out more than we thought,” Greg said.
The development included building a 36.5 m long, 21 m wide and 5 m high shed.
Half the shed is cemented and there is a laneway running up the middle to allow for easy delivery of calves.
At the centre of the system is a DeLaval calf feeding station with four units, capable of feeding 120 calves.
Milk is pumped across from the dairy to a refrigerated vat in the shed.
“We started development last June and it has taken us almost 12 months to complete,” Greg said.
“We only calve around 200 cows in autumn so this has allowed us to iron out any problems before spring — when the big numbers come in and we calve around 400.”
New calves are brought in from the paddock and housed in single pens 1 m by 1.5 m where they stay for a couple of days and are taught to drink.
They then move out into a bigger pen and straight onto the automatic feeder.
The calves access up to eight litres of milk a day, two litres at a time so they cannot make themselves sick.
For ease of management the area around the feeder is cemented while the rest of the pen is covered in pine shavings over a sandy dirt base for good drainage.
Calves also have access to adlib pellets and hay.
“We used to rear our calves in an old piggery we converted a long time ago but it started to make the calves sick, so we moved outside with hay bales and sheep yards but that was no good when poor weather came in,” Greg said.
“Under the new system the calves are much more relaxed and content.
“We can turn up to the shed and there is no bellowing calves because they are all fed and happily chewing on pellets or hay.”
The bull calves are kept in a separate area in the shed in one of four bull pens on a cemented area, which can be easily washed and drained away.
Greg said they were expecting the time saved to be quite significant and well worth the investment.
“The work is now in teaching the calves how to feed and then basically letting the system do its thing and just keeping an eye on it and the stock.”
There were a couple of teething problems initially but most of those problems have now been sorted out.
“We had a few issues early with scours because we didn’t have the feeder set up correctly but we have ironed that out now and should be right to go for spring,” Greg said.
He said organising the project ahead of completion time meant they thankfully weren’t caught up in any COVID-related delays because they had most of their equipment before they started.
A recent rain of 40 mm has set their autumn up nicely and they are looking forward to a good season ahead.
“The seed in the ground is really starting to take off so we are off to a good start anyway,” Greg said.
The entire farm is sown down to annuals with the majority of feed stored in silage pits and fed out to the herd on a feedpad from Christmas through to May.
“We are expecting a step-up to come through from the milk company and things are looking pretty positive — we are just getting older and more tired,” Greg laughed.