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Auto feeder frees up management time for calves.Navigation: Main page Author: Long, Jonathan jonathan.long@rbi.co.ukBuss, Jessica Section: LIVESTOCK
Calf rearing can be labour intensive, but using an automatic milk feeder can remove much of the burden. WITH COSTS rising few farmers can afford to leave cattle buildings empty for long, but calf rearing with an automatic feeder could be an extra income for beef farmers without high labour demand. For Sheepscombe, Stroud-based Phil Hines rearing beef cross calves for 12 weeks represents a good way of using cattle buildings in the summer months. But it has to be done cost-effectively. "We erected a new building two years ago to house our suckler herd over the winter, but to justify the expense we needed to make use of it through the summer too. Leaving a building empty for at least half the year significantly increases fixed costs." With that in mind, Mr Hines began rearing beef cross calves which arrive at the farm at between two and four weeks of age and are reared for 12 weeks before being sold to a finisher. But for the calf rearing enterprise to be a success it needed to have a low management requirement. "We needed to be sure calves are fed milk regularly, at the right strength and temperature, without it taking too much of our time." Mr Hines aims to rear about 400 calves a year through his shed, 60 at a time. "We thought using an automatic feeder would enable us to spend more time looking at calves to check health and performance. Rearing calves on buckets takes a lot of time and while you may spend several hours a day with calves, you actually spend little time checking them." With the Foster Technik Calfpride System Mr Hines is able to leave the machine to feed calves and can spend at least half an hour every day just managing calves. That's all the routine daily labour input required. "We can set the machine up to feed calves a set amount of milk a day at a set strength and leave it to it." DAILY ADJUSTMENTSWith his machine capable of feeding 60 calves at a time, Mr Hines is able to use a number of programmes which will adjust daily allowances according to calf age and weight. "We generally only use one programme which is a six-week setting. "This includes one week of introducing calves to milk, four when calves are fed a fixed amount of milk and the final weaning week when the amount of milk is reduced daily." When required it is possible to have calves in the same group feeding on four different feeding programmes, explains Will Sinclair of machine supplier Calfpride Systems. "Once the machine is programmed it will do exactly what you tell it to, so calves can be managed according to growth." Mr Hines has found this feature particularly useful as occasionally there are some larger calves in the batches he rears. "These can be reared on a different programme to the rest, avoiding the need to separate them into another rearing group." Calves take just a couple of feeds to adjust to the machine and Mr Hines reckons he's only had one calf in two years which has failed to drink from it. "Once you've shown them a couple of times they soon learn how to work it. "All they have to do is walk into the crate and the electronic transponder on their collar informs the machine which calf it is. "The machine is then able to dispense the right amount of milk for that calf. Once it has drunk its daily allowance it has to wait until the next day for more milk." And with the feeder recording exactly how much milk every calf drinks each day, it can soon alert Mr Hines when there is a problem. "Quite often when you first come into the shed in the morning there will be calves which are marked up as having drunk little, but normally by about 10 or 11am they will all have drunk enough." While the machine undoubtedly saves time and means Mr Hines can be sure calves are fed while he is away on other farm business, he claims this isn't the biggest benefit. "Knowing that milk is correctly mixed, is fresh and is the right strength are the real benefits. You only need to make a mistake mixing milk once for it to cause scours or other upsets which calves can take a long time to recover from." AUTOMATIC REARING* Gives peace of mind * Known milk quality * Variable rearing programmes * Calves easily trained PHOTO (COLOR): Offering calves dry feed from day one means is little growth check at weaning. PHOTO (COLOR): The machine flags up calves which fail to drink sufficient milk and feeding rates can be adjusted accordingly, says Phil Hines. ~~~~~~~~ Reported by Jonathan Long; Edited by Jessica Buss, 020 8652 4935 in the Fair Use guidelines of the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act. info [at] singlearticles.com Powered by CommonSense |
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