I rode to the farm with Becs this morning for milking at
5:30 AM. After milking was over around 9:30, I fed the one mob of calves left
that was not weaned last Thursday and then “water-blasted” (pressure-washed)
the “cafeteria” (calf feeder).
At 11 AM it was time for lunch. I had until 1 PM off and
then returned to the farm. My job for the afternoon was to clean out all of the
calf feeding supplies to prepare for calving, which has already started. The
early calvers are due to start calving around July 10, and two cows of these
cows calved early this weekend. The calves were born dead (they were early) but the cows are doing
well. This can only mean one thing…the calves are coming! I scrubbed all of the
milk feeders, bottles, and grain bins and finished around 3:30 PM.
I spent the rest of my day planning my vacation (July
16-22), which will be a trip to the Bay of Islands, Auckland, and Palmerston
North. I was able to make reservations and pay for my bus tickets, tours, and
accommodations for the week.
Tuesday, July
03, 2012
This morning I was
at the farm at 7:30 and started by shifting the two pastures of dry cows (67
& 68) and Herd 2 onto their crop. My next job was to feed the milk calves
and the weaned calves their calf meal. Next, Rhox showed me how to use the large sprayer after hooking
it up behind the 4-wheeler and filling it with a mixture of water and antibacterial soap. I drove the
4-wheeler to the calf shed and sprayed all of the walls, gates, and feeders
inside the calf shed to further prepare for the upcoming calving season. By the time
I finished, it was 12:30 PM. Before driving home for lunch I drove Herd 1 off
the crop and up to the feed pad to eat their mixed ration.
 |
| The sprayer |
After lunch, I
drove back to the farm at 2 PM for the afternoon milking. I spent my afternoon
writing down ear tag numbers of cows that have not been bred yet. Once I was
done with that, Josh calculated that about 89% of Ashton’s fall calving cows
have been mated, which is about 1% shy of BEL Group’s goal – breed 90% of
eligible cows by 3 weeks of the 5-week mating season. By the end of week 5, the goal is to have 95% of all eligible cows bred.
Wednesday, July
4, 2012
Today was long as…dismal
as…rainy as…sucky as (kiwi lingo, remember)…need I continue?
At least one cool thing happened
today…well last night actually…an earthquake! Yep, that’s right! Last night a
7.0 magnitude earthquake hit 60 km south of Mount Taranaki (click here for more info and maps!) and
I woke up to the last few rumbles. At least it was over 200 km deep, but they
could feel the earthquake on the south island too!
Today started early – I was awake
at 5 AM and milking at 5:30. I milked this morning and afterwards hosed the
entire cow yard in the rain. It has been raining nonstop since yesterday and there is
so much water everywhere!
My next job was to feed the milk
calves…while trying not to get the blue ute stuck again. Well, that pretty much
ended in an epic fail. I got the calves fed and then tried to pull away slowly
so I wouldn’t lose traction. I was successful at first until after driving
about 10 feet my back wheels started to spin. I thought ‘oh no, not again!’ as
I tried to drive back and forth to get out of the pit my back tires had spun
into (the ute only has 2-wheel drive). Okay next plan. I walk over to the
nearby shed that Josh and Basil were at when I first drove by and of course they are
not there anymore, and of course I have no cell phone. By now I have been out
about an hour and the job usually only takes about a half hour, so I was
thinking maybe I will just wait until somebody finds me. The other option was to
start walking back to the farm (about a mile away). As I look down the road I
see tractors being moved at the nearby contractor’s shed so I walk down there and
a nice older gentleman asks if he can help me. After I tell him my dilemma, he
chuckles, says “well that’s a bugga, eh?” and tells me he will get his son to
pull me out. His son, Tom (about my age) drives up in an awesome, new, and big John Deere tractor. We drive to the pasture with the truck and he pulled me out successfully. I drove back to the farm, hosed out the cafeteria, and went home for lunch.
At 1 PM it was time to get back to the farm where Sam, Basil and I drove 225
weaned calves to the yards down the road to be weighed...in the rain. All of
the calves were drenched with a dewormer and given a 2.5 mL-injection of vitamin B. Any calf that weighed over 100 kgs was weaned from calf meal. Once
we were done weighing the calves, we drove the underweight calves back to the
pasture they came from and took the heavy calves to the pasture across the road
for the night. Tomorrow they will be taken to a separate off-farm pasture to be
raised off-farm by another sector of the BEL Group known as the Dry Stock division.
Next, Basil helped me move calf feeders and feed the light calves their calf
meal and by then it was 5 PM.
Okay…so 2 cool things happened
today…our first live heifer calf of the spring calving season was born today!
Good thing I sprayed the calf shed yesterday with antibacterial spray. It seems
inevitable…the calves are coming!
 |
| Calf shed for heifers (there are 2 smaller ones for bull calves) Each pen holds 18 calves and there are 10 pens plus a small outside area for each pen |
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Got to the farm this morning at
7:30 – which was nice because I was supposed to milk at 5:30 and after the long
as, rainy as day I had yesterday, I was thankful for the extra sleep. Sadly, it
was dismal as today too.
This week the new software and
two new computers for the drafting gate that was put in place last week were
installed in the office at the farm. When Josh and Becs arrived at the farm
this morning, the office had been broken into last night and the two new computers, along
with the palm pilot (used with the farm’s software system), had been stolen!
Recently the farm has been having issues with burglary and before I arrived,
the farm even had a motorbike stolen, along with the helmet that was there.
Extra precautions have been taken on all BEL Group farms - both diesel and
gasoline tanks are locked at all times and all bikes are locked in the shed at
night with their keys hidden in the office, which had a new lock put on when
the computers were installed.
I started my day by shifting the fence
reel for Herd 1 on the crop and had to redo the one set up for today because
whoever set it up yesterday obviously could not count to 6 paces. Needless to
say, the job took twice as long and I got twice as wet. Plus the motorbike I decided to use was not very ideal since it did not have much traction in the pasture mud, which Basil told me about I returned to the cow shed.
My next job was to feed the milk
calves, but first I had to help Sam sort out a cow that had calved last night
from the dry cows. After hooking up the 4-wheeler to the calf trailer, I
followed Sam out to pasture 67 where he had already sorted the cow out when he
shifted the dry cows onto new grass for the day. We put the calf in the trailer
and tried to drive the cow out of the pasture away from the other dry cows, but
she just hopped the fence reel and mixed in with the other dry cows. That was
NOT very ideal of her. Sam took over the 4-wheeler using the cow’s calf as the
bait and drove after her. Once he had the cow sorted out, I lowered the fence
so he could drive over and then tightened it back up when Sam had the cow
successfully back on the correct side of the fence reel. He kept the cow moving
with the 4-wheeler and I hopped on his motorbike, taking over driving the cow out
of the pasture so she would not change her mind and turn around. I drove the
cow down the races to the cow shed while Sam took down the fence reel.
 |
| Blue motorbike = very little traction and bad for mud |
Now time to feed the milk calves in the pasture, but
first Sam showed me how to put the white ute in 4-wheel drive in case I got
stuck again. I had to shift the calves into another pasture so I drove slow and
let them follow the calf feeder while I led them to the proper paddock. I was
thankful for the 4-wheel drive and had to use it when I started fish-tailing
with the ute because the grass was so wet and slippery. And yes, it was still
raining…while feeding calves and when I fed the weaned calves their grain.
My last job before lunchtime was
to finish spraying the other two smaller calf sheds with antibacterial spray.
It only took about an hour and I was done by noon for a break until our weekly
staff meeting at 1:45 PM. The plan after the meeting was to go draft "springers" (cows due to calve soon), but the drizzly rain that was coming down all morning
decided to turn into a steady downpour (there was an inch of rain in a ½
hour!), so that project was postponed until another drier day. Josh told me to go home for the day after I rinsed out the sprayer
with water.
Tonight at 7 PM there is a calf
rearing seminar in Waipukurau that Josh and Becs and I will be going to. It
should be interesting and I am looking forward to seeing how the logistics of
calf rearing here in New Zealand compares with the US!
Friday, July 6, 2012
Total calf count = 3
Total calf count = 3
The calf rearing seminar last
night was very interesting. The speaker, Bas Schouten, is a well-practiced veterinarian in New Zealand and known for his expertise in calf rearing. Everyone in the room was given a sheet of paper that listed his “Ten Demandments” of calf rearing. These rules were also published in the July 10, 2012 Issue 272 of Dairy News in an article entitled "Calf rearing key to herd's future":
1) A
healthy herd – rotavirus and BVD vaccinated, if not BVD free
2) Twice daily calf pick ups and colostrum within 6 hours of birth - tube feed if in doubt
3) Good
housing: small groups, separate replacements
4) Early
disease protection
5) Disease
treatment protocols for scours and nave infection: thermometer, syringes and tube feeder essential
6) Unlimited supply of good
quality electrolytes
7) Sodium
bentonite – for prevention and treatment of infections
8) Good
quality meal/pellets/fibre
9) Good, clean pasture
10) Good staff – well paid and not
required to lift more than 30 kgs
I took lots of notes during
Bas’s lecture, not because I was learning new things about how to take care of
calves, but because I wanted to remember differences between home and New
Zealand in calf rearing principles I noticed during the seminar:
Calf rearing principle
|
What I have learned
from experience, school, or veterinarians (and prefer)
|
At Ashton, or common practices
in New Zealand
|
Calving season
|
All year round
|
Mid/late winter (starts
mid-July)
|
Calving area
|
Clean, well bedded, draft-free
pen
|
Green pasture
|
Colostrum
|
1 gallon within
1 hour of birth (clean without blood or mastitis)
Storage – freeze
immediately for use within 3 weeks or refrigerate for use within 3 days
|
2 liters (.5 gallon) within 6 hours of birth (can have blood or mastitis)
Storage – keep
in a bucket with the lid closed tight or in tank with stirrer
|
Remove calf from cow
|
Within 1 hour of birth to
reduce exposure to pathogens in calving area
|
Within 6 hours of birth to
ensure adequate, timely colostrum intake
|
Navel infection treatment
|
10 cc penicillin 2x/day for 7
days
|
5cc penicillin 1x/day for 5
days (incidence rate is 25%)
|
Milk
|
High quality
milk replacer or pasteurized milk
At least 1
gallon/day
Fed 2x/day until
weaning
|
Milk from
treated cows or milk replacer
At least 4 liters/day (1 gallon) or 10-15%
of body weight
Calves<3 wks
fed cold milk 2x/day (>3x fed 1x/day)
|
Housing
|
Individual pens to weaning –
hutches or shed
|
Group housing – shed until 3
weeks then outside
|
Weaning criteria
|
4 lbs calf grain per day, double birth weight
|
1 kg (2.2 lbs) calf meal/day, >75 kg
body weight
|
Bedding
|
Winter – long
straw
Summer – sawdust
or sand
|
Sawdust or riverstones
|
Treatment for scours
|
Milk 2x/day and electrolytes
1x/day; very dehydrated calves will get IV fluids
|
Milk 2x/day and electrolytes
2x/day
|
Water, water…its everywhere! In total we had about 4 inches of rain in 72 hours! There are three different spots along the driveway that are about a ½ foot deep
with water. This is due to a culvert under the driveway in which a creek runs
through and then towards the farm. The culvert has been overflowing since last
night and has found low spots to run over the driveway. On the way to the farm
there was another spot where the culvert the creek normally flows through was
overflowing onto the road. The water was still overflowing in all of these
spots at the end of the day.
 |
| Water over the driveway |
 |
| Water overflowing the creek and onto the driveway |
I milked this morning, starting
at 5:30 AM so Rhox could draft cows for breeding in place of Becs, because it
is her and Josh’s weekend off. After milking was over I fed the new calf that
was born yesterday and then the other milk calves out on pasture (using the
4-wheel drive ute).
I was going out to feed grain to the weaned calves, when Sam
asked me to help him with a down cow in the treated pen. Once we got out there
it was clear to me the cow had milk fever – she was lying down, shaking, ears
cold, and had calved yesterday. Sam had brought with us two 500mL bags of a mixture of calcium borogluconate plus magnesium sulfate and
we gave her the first bag IV and the second bag under the skin. We drove back
to the cow shed and I put some oral calcium drench into a bottle, drove back to
the cow, and gave her that as well. The cow had not gotten up yet, but I knew
she would take a little bit of time because of how bad she was shaking and how
cold her ears were.
 |
| First new calf of the season - and its a heifer! |
I got back to my job of feeding
grain to the weaned calves. I returned to the farm and there were two new
calves in the calf shed waiting for me, a heifer and a bull calf. I sprayed
each calf’s navel with iodine and looked over to where Sam was by the milk
fever cow, and she was standing up! Good to know I can still treat sick cows!
By this time it was noon so I
went home, ate lunch, skyped with my family, and then went to town to buy some
groceries and print pictures of last weekend’s adventures in Taupo. I got back
around 4:30 PM and had to go back to the farm to feed the three calves their
milk. I gave heifer calf born yesterday her “seconds” (milk from her dam’s
second milking) and fed the two calves born this morning their “gold” (colostrum),
but had to tube feed the new heifer calf because she would not drink.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Total calf count = 5
I had to milk again this
morning, so I was up at 5 and milking by 5:30 AM. Milking went fine and
afterwards I fed the three baby calves their “seconds”. At least the heifer calf I had
to tube last night drank find this morning. Meanwhile, Sam went to get the two cows that
had calved last night and Reynor brought me their calves – a bull and a heifer
calf. After giving each of them their colostrum, I fed the milk calves in the pasture
and then fed the weaned calves their calf grain.
It was about noon by the time I
was done and I was going to head home when Sam asked me to go look at a cow
with him in the lame herd of cows. She would not get up for milking this
morning and looked very dehydrated when I got to her, like she has been sick for more than just one day. She got up when I walked
up to her and after I listened and heard her breathing, it sounded like
pneumonia. Sam and I went back to the cow shed and I looked around the drug
cabinet to find an antibiotic to treat pneumonia. The brand names are all different here but I can recognize the common drug name, so after reading through labels I chose to give her 30cc of Tylan. We went back to the cow
where I gave her the injection and then Sam marked her with red paint
on her hind legs to mark that she needs to go into the treated herd tomorrow
morning (since the lame herd only gets milked in the morning).
I went home for the afternoon to
find the internet not working…bummer. I had to return to the farm at 5 PM to
feed the calves and that went fine, except the new heifer calf from this
morning would not drink. Hopefully she will drink in the morning!
Sunday, July 8, 2012
 |
| View of the "cow shed' (milking parlor) from the calf sheds |
Total calf count = 6 (3 heifers,
3 bulls)
I did not have to work until
7:30 this morning and it was nice to sleep in a bit. I got to the farm and met
up with Sam, who had brought Rachael with him, to see what I needed to do. I
started by feeding the pasture calves their milk and then fed grain to the
weaned calves. Only one cow calved last night so the next job was to go get her
and the calf. I drove Sam’s bike while he and Rachael rode the 4-wheeler with
the calf trailer behind it to go get the cow and calf. We got there, loaded the
new bull calf, and drove the cow home. By the time we got the cow to the
pasture with the treated herd there was fresh milk to feed the calves. I had to
tube the bull calf but all of the other calves drank well and the older ones
even drank from the 5-teat mob feeder.
After
cleaning the calf bottles, milk buckets, some more grain troughs and waterers
in the calf shed, I went home for the afternoon. The internet was still not
working, so Becs called the company and found out that they had shut off the
internet connection to the house instead of the cow shed like they were
supposed to after the computers were stolen from the office. We should have
internet back tomorrow when the company’s office is open – hopefully!
 |
| The 5-teat milk feeder used to teach smaller groups of calves to drink |
I had to go back to the farm at
5 PM to feed the new calves again but they all drank well. Only one more week
until my vacation!
Monday, July 9, 2012
Total calf count = 10
I got to the farm at 7:30 this
morning and took over milking for Rhox so he could watch for AB cows while Sam,
Becs, and Josh had a meeting. After about a half hour the meeting was over and
I fed the new calves right away. Next I fed the mob of milk calves in the
pasture and by the time I was back from that, Sam and Josh had brought me the
new calves for the morning – 2 new heifers! I fed both of them colostrum and
sprayed their navels with iodine.
After lunch I had to milk the PM
shift. There were two new heifer calves this afternoon, which Josh and Sam
retrieved from the pasture this afternoon and Becs fed. I was done milking by 6
PM and done for the day.
 |
| The last group of milk calves on pasture that were born during the fall calving season (March - May) |
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Total calf count = 11
I had to milk at 5:30 AM this
morning so all of the cows could be pre-stripped before milking because the SCC
reached over 400,000 yesterday. We found about 6 new cows with mastitis. It’s
pretty frustrating for me because a) it seems like I am the one who has to get up early when
this happens, b) it happens every Monday/the day after Josh and Becs are away
for the weekend, and c) there are a few things I would change with the
mastitis detection and milking protocols because in my opinion they are contributing to the mastitis incidence on the farm. However, I find myself reluctant
to make any suggestions right away because a) I am new, b) I am used to a
different system that includes prepping and more stringent sanitary conditions, and c) I feel like I need to understand the system more (like logistics involved in making changes).
If I learned anything from
taking Michel Wattiaux’s Dairying in Mexico Seminar last spring, is that
introducing changes in a system because general practices are not the same as what is considered 'normal' (on
dairy farms in the US, for example) does not mean these changes are best suited or
applicable in a different system. A good example of this is that when I first
arrived and learned that there is no general prepping procedure for the milking
process, I was only a little short of disgusted. I can only imagine what UW milk quality expert Pamela Ruegg would think! After talking to Josh and Becs
about it, they explained to me that research done on farms in New Zealand proved
that it does not significantly lower SCC and there was too much iodine residue
in the milk from the teat spray. This started to make sense to me when I
applied the idea to the typical, pasture-based dairy farm in New Zealand where
it is difficult to control the environment the cow spends their time in - the
pasture. Now compare this to the US dairy cow that (hopefully) lies in a bed of
clean sand or sawdust in a stall when she is not eating, drinking, or being
milked - its a lot easier to control the environment she lies down in. The key to finding the solution to this problem may be to start with
baby steps, but first I need to make sure I fully understand the logistics
and practicality of any changes I suggest.
 |
| Fonterra milk truck |
After milking was done I fed the
young milk calves. There was only one bull calf born today but I had to tube
feed him the colostrum. Next I fed the milk calves in the pasture and then
brought grain to the weaned calves. By that time it was lunchtime!
I went back to the farm at 2 PM
and Becs showed me what needed to be done in the calf shed. I filled the corner
hay racks in the first five calf pens with hay and put some calf muesli (grain with
corn, pellets, some hay, and so much molasses it makes your hands sticky) into
the grain bins I cleaned out last Monday for the heifer calves. I also put sodium bentonite (a gray powder that is zeolite clay) into separate
grain bins for them and cleaned the waterers. Sodium Bentonite, also known as TruBond or Rumenite, binds up bacterial or viral toxins and also absorbs fluid as prevention/treatment for scours. It is offered free choice to young calves and is a very common practice on New Zealand dairy farms. The calves really like it and start eating it when they are only a few days old. You can tell this because the bentonite leaves the calves' noses all gray!
 |
| The milk fed calves on pasture running towards the cafeteria for their daily feeding |
 |
| A calf with sodium bentonite on its nose (the gray powder) plus the hay in the corner |
The farm received 33 bulls today (white-faced Herefords and Jerseys) that will go out with the cows next week since it is the end of the 5-week winter mating period. Any cows that have not been bred yet will hopefully be bred by the bulls.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Total calf count = 15
I started this morning at 5:30
by milking the AM shift. Once we were done it was time to feed the milk calves.
Sam dropped off 4 new calves for me - 2 heifers and 2 bulls. By now 5 of the 9
heifer calves can drink out of the portable 10-teat mob feeders we have and 3
of the 6 bull calves can as well, so I fed them their milk while tube-feeding
the 4 new calves. The protocol at Ashton is to tube all new calves with
colostrum for their first feeding to make sure they all receive 2 litres. This
is because there will be days when there are 20+ new calves and it is the most
efficient way to ensure they all receive colostrum. The second feeding, calves are offered
colostrum again and if they do not suckle from the smaller, 5-teat mob feeder
or drink from a bottle, they are tubed again with 2 liters. After each feeding
of colostrum, a calf gets an orange dot sprayed on one side of its back above
its hind leg. Once the calf has two orange dots it is fed milk “seconds” and is
expected to drink from the mob feeders.
At 10:30 AM was the weekly
employee meeting at the farm office. Hamish (the vet) was there to discuss diagnosing and
treating “downer” (sick) fresh cows during calving season. It was basic stuff,
nothing new to me, but was good for me to learn the farm’s protocols and the
brand names of common drugs used for treatments.
 |
| The 10-teat, portable mob feeder used to feed milk calves |
After the meeting was over at
11:30 it was time to go home for lunch. I returned to the farm at 2 PM for the
afternoon milking because both milk filters for Herd 1 and Herd 2 were bad this
morning and the SCC today for the farm was 397,000. Instead of milking,
however, Becs put me in charge of stripping every cow in both herds. I stripped
every teat on every cow at least two times (2 strips/teat x 4 teats/cow x 700
cows = 5600 strips!) and was able to find a handful of cows in each herd with clinical
mastitis symptoms. Hopefully this means the filters will be better tomorrow and
we will see a drop in the SCC.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Total calf count = 16
Yes, only one calf was born
today – and it was a bull calf of course. At 7:30 this morning I got to the
farm and started by feeding the new calves their milk. The pasture calves on
milk were weaned by Sam yesterday so no more feeding them and getting stuck
with the blue ute! Once I was done feeding calves, Sam and I drove across the road
(Sam drove the white ute with the calf trailer on the back and I took his
motorbike) to the pasture of “springers” (cows that are going to calve this
spring) to collect the cows and calves. There was only one bull calf and getting him
and his dam out of the pasture went very well. We drove the cow across the road
and down the race to the “pennos” pasture (group of treated and colostrum cows,
pronounced pee-nose). I fed the new bull calf and then it was time for lunch.
After lunch I milked the
afternoon milking with Rhox and Nestor. I had to feed calves after milking
since Josh and Becs were away for a meeting, but it went well even in the dark.
There are no lights in the calf shed so I used the headlights on the blue ute I
use to feed calves and drive to and from the farm. It worked pretty well!
 |
| Sam driving the white ute with the cow following her calf in the trailer |
Friday, July 13, 2012
Total calf count = 28
I got to the farm at 7:30 this
morning and started by feeding the calves. There was a heavy frost last night
so there was little to do in the pastures until about 9 AM when it lifted. By
then I was done feeding calves and it was time to go get the new calves and
fresh cows. Josh and I rode our motorbikes while Reynor drove the 4-wheeler
with the calf trailer behind it and we headed to the pasture of springers
across the road. Even before we got in the pasture I counted at least six
calves on the ground! There ended up being 7 total in that pasture. Reynor
would drive up to the calf and then Josh would quickly grab the calf and tag it
if it was a heifer calf. I was in charge of writing down the cow numbers and
whether their calf was a heifer or bull calf.
Once we separated all of the fresh cows and collected the calves in the trailer, we drove the cows across the road and into the pennos pasture. Reynor and I unloaded the baby calves – 4 bulls and 3 heifers – into their respective pens in the calf shed and then drove across the road where 3 more cows and their new calves were waiting for us in another pasture. We gathered the calves – 2 heifers and 1 bull – in the trailer and drove those cows into the penno pasture. By that time there was another newborn calf in the penno group! Supposedly there was one cow that was brought back earlier this week that was thought to have calved when they were collecting the day’s fresh cows and new calves but actually had not, so she ended up calving in the penno herd. Reynor and I loaded the new baby bull calf into the trailer and unloaded these 4 new calves into the calf shed.
Now it was the intern’s time to feed the new calves…yep that’s me! It took about an hour by the time I tubed all 11 calves their colostrum and sprayed their navels with iodine. After all this adventure it was time for lunch.
I returned to the farm from lunch about an
hour later. Josh and Rav drove their motorbikes while I drove the 4-wheeler out
to pasture 50 where the bulls are kept that arrived on the farm earlier this week.
We took 24 of the 33 and Rav and I drove them down the race towards the cow
shed where they were split into three groups, one group for each herd. The
bulls will stay with Herds 1, 2, and 3 for the next 3 weeks to finish off the
winter mating period.
Once we separated all of the fresh cows and collected the calves in the trailer, we drove the cows across the road and into the pennos pasture. Reynor and I unloaded the baby calves – 4 bulls and 3 heifers – into their respective pens in the calf shed and then drove across the road where 3 more cows and their new calves were waiting for us in another pasture. We gathered the calves – 2 heifers and 1 bull – in the trailer and drove those cows into the penno pasture. By that time there was another newborn calf in the penno group! Supposedly there was one cow that was brought back earlier this week that was thought to have calved when they were collecting the day’s fresh cows and new calves but actually had not, so she ended up calving in the penno herd. Reynor and I loaded the new baby bull calf into the trailer and unloaded these 4 new calves into the calf shed.
Now it was the intern’s time to feed the new calves…yep that’s me! It took about an hour by the time I tubed all 11 calves their colostrum and sprayed their navels with iodine. After all this adventure it was time for lunch.
 |
| My trusty colostrum tube feeder |
The next project for the
afternoon was to draft springing heifers from a large group of them on pasture
across the road from the farm. We sorted out any heifers with developing udders
that look like they will calve within the next 1-2 weeks. Rav and I drove this
group of about 40 heifers down the road into a pasture next to the driveway of
Josh and Becs’s house, where they will calve.
Once Rav and I were done I drove
back to the farm to feed calves quick before dark. Josh and Becs had found one
more calf – another bull – this afternoon while they were drafting springers
from the herd of cows across the road from the farm, making a grand total of 12
new babies for the day!
On Fridays Josh and Becs
typically go to the local pub in the small town of Onga Onga. We got there
around 6 PM and ordered drinks and fish & chips. Sam and Laurence were
there so we ate supper with them, had a few beers, and then headed back home.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Total calf count = 37
Once I got to the farm at 7:30
this morning Josh and Becs and I went across the road to the pasture of
springers to collect the new fresh cows and their calves. We found seven new
baby calves, sorted out their mothers, drove them home, and unloaded the calves.
One more calf was born in the pennos pasture last night from a cow that was
brought home yesterday (she decided to come with the rest of the fresh
cows). I spent the rest of the morning feeding calves, which took about 2 hours by
the time I tubed the new calves their colostrum and got the calves born
yesterday to learn how to drink from the mob feeders. Becs came to help me and tubed the last 4 new calves while I worked with the calves born yesterday.
I returned to the farm at 2 PM
to feed calves for their afternoon feeding. There was one more new baby that Josh collected this
afternoon from the pasture of heifers we sorted out yesterday and put next to
the house driveway.
Sam and Rachael had their
engagement party tonight so that’s why I had to feed calves early. By 4:30 PM
Josh, Becs, and I were all ready and drove about a ½ hour up into the nearby
hills for the party. There was lots of food, drinks, and people there and we
had a really good time. We were all pretty tired so we didn't stay too late. By 10 PM we were home and it was time for
bed!
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Total calf count = 41
This morning came way too soon,
even though 6:30 AM really isn’t that early, but I find it difficult getting
out of bed sometimes when it’s still dark out and my bed is so warm! I got to
the farm and started feeding calves while Josh, Becs, and Rav went to collect
the new fresh cows and calves across the road. Rav came back with only two new
calves…thank goodness! Feeding calves went well and I am getting better at
being patient with the ones I have to teach to drink from the feeder. Needless
to say there are still stupid calves here in New Zealand (especially the crossbreds)!
 |
| The white ute with the calf trailer and today's new calves |
After I fed calves I was able to
go home for my lunch break. I had to be back at the farm by 2 PM to strip the
teats of all cows in Herd 1 and Herd 2 (yes, again). The SCC has gone down but Josh and Becs
want it to stay that way. I found a few cows with mastitis, but not as many as
I did Wednesday. Once I finished around 4:30 PM I was done for the day; Becs
fed calves tonight since I did this morning.
Tomorrow I am leaving for my
week long vacation around the north island. I find myself a little more
reluctant to leave now that the excitement of calving has started. I know it
will be here when I return and am reassured by this when Josh and Becs told me there are 1700 cows due to calve by the end of October! I am definitely looking forward to giving my
lower back and legs a break from feeding all those new calves though!
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| A graph of Ashton's expected calving spread. And yes, that is 120 calves expectedon August 4! |
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