Bring in the professionals

Successful and efficient heifer rearing requires dedication and expertise

With many herds expanding and labour in short supply, time is precious. But so are replacement heifers. Market prices are spiralling and the future of any herd is only as good as its youngstock. So it's little wonder then that more and more producers are looking to out-source heifer rearing.

"Many producers are guilty of it - I know we were," says Robert Wytchard of Park Farm, Maple Durham, near Reading. "We never gave our heifers the time and priority treatment that they deserve and the situation only got worse when we expanded our milking herd," he adds.
Robert says that the only way he could ensure that his heifers - the future milkers for his 500-cow herd - were grown as quickly and efficiently as possible and calved at 24 months old was to send them off to a dedicated heifer rearer.
"I don't think that dairy farmers are always the best calf rearers. We certainly weren't. For us it was often the last job, but we realised that it should be the first. We knew we needed to do the job better and that's why we decided to let someone else do it. We're not specialists, so we found someone who was."
That someone was local ex-dairy farmer Alistair Cooper, with 40 years of caring for livestock under his belt. Robert still works closely with Alistair.
They work together to meet the heifer rearing targets that Robert sets and to follow health protocols that also ensure that heifer growth is unchecked.
"Our aim is to calve heifers at 24 months old to black-and-white sires," says Robert, who selects all his sires using Alta Genetic's AltaMate program.
"Calving them at two years old helps to reduce rearing costs and it also means that heifers finish paying for themselves - and contributing to the bottom line - sooner."
"Rearing someone else's heifers is a huge responsibility - the future success of their herd rests with me," says Alistair Cooper. But it's a challenge he relishes and he's certainly got plenty of skill and experience to pull it off.

Strict regime
He sold his 220-cow milking herd five years ago for economic reasons, but was keen to continue keeping livestock on his farm. "And contract heifer rearing was the obvious thing to do."
He has 260 head of stock - ranging from two weeks to 22 months of age - on his Berkshire-based unit at the moment and they're all from Robert Wytchard's Maple Durham herd.
"It's my job to take those two-week old heifer calves and to grow them as quickly and efficiently as possible and to get them in calf, ready to calve at 24 months of age," says Alistair.
A strict health regime - comprising giving all new-born heifers at least two litres of Alta Genetic's natural colostrum product, Calf's Choice Total, within two hours of birth, vaccination against pneumonia, feeding pellets containing Deccox to protect calves against Coccidiosis, and careful and consistent milk feeding to prevent scours - serves both him and the heifers well.


Flying start
He says getting them off to a flying start is the key. "If I can get them to between 110 and 120kg at weaning and avoid any growth checks, caused by nutritional or health problems, then I'm a long way towards achieving the 24-month calving target. If I don't then I spend most of the period after weaning and up to the point of service playing catch up. That can be costly both in economic terms and future heifer performance."
When two-week-old calves arrive at Alistair's unit they're grouped in pens of between six and 10 and fed, once a day, with a Volac calf milk replacer (CMR) through a 1O-teat calf feeder. "They get up to 600g per day in four litres of water at their peak," he says. Fresh water and starter pellets are offered on an ad-lib basis.
He's looking for a weight gain of 1.2 to 1.3kg per day to achieve the 'magical' weaning weight target.
Weaning is done gradually: "This is absolutely essential to avoid any checks in growth and nutritional upsets. Calves are gradually weaned during a week-long period. I reduce the concentration of the CMR until, by day seven, I'm offering the calves no more than cloudy water."
Once weaned, calves spend another week to 10 days in their small group to give them a chance to get to grips with solid feed before they're moved to join a larger group of between 15 and 25 heifers. Their diet comprises hay, water and pellets.
"And I'm looking to maintain daily liveweight gains of around 1.2kg per day. Growth is key here," says Alistair, who, after years of experience, monitors heifer growth by eye.
The heifers remain in this group until they are between 14 and 16 weeks old, when they then join a slightly larger group.

Optimal feeding
"Group size here is never more than about 70 heifers. It's not practical to manage larger groups. And it's easier to monitor smaller groups and ensure that feeding is optimal.
"At this stage I'm looking to increase the quality of the forage proportion in the ration and limit the amount of concentrate fed to encourage lean growth and prevent them from laying down too much fat in their udders."
But Alistair still wants those heifers to keep growing so he can ensure that they have plenty of stature and body depth - and weigh at least 350kg - at around 14 months of age when he wants to start serving them.
"At this point Robert steps in and tells me which bulls he wants me to use. I don't usually synchronise heifers, I just house them at this time and observe for signs of heat. But we're doing some synchronising this year for the first time."
Heifers are vaccinated at between 12 and 13 months of age against BVD and Leptospirosis, prior to AI.
Once heifers have been served and have been confirmed 'in calf', Alistair says that he 'eases off a bit'. "Depending on the time of year, these heifers may go out to grass for a while, although I'll still feed them around 1.5kg of concentrate per day. It could be a bit more, depending on forage quality."
He wants them weighing around 550kg when they calve at 24 months. They return to Robert's unit, which is ab out 25 miles away, at 22.5 months of age - about six weeks before they calve.
"This gives them time to settle in to their new environment and for Robert to cubicle train them," says Alistair, adding that he gets a great deal of satisfaction when a group of healthy, strong, in-calf heifers leave his unit.
"That's my job done - the rest is up to Robert - but I know that I've given those heifers the best - and most efficient - start in life. And I've given Robert the foundations to milk healthy and productive heifers over several lactations."

text Rachael Porter
Cow Management, November 11, 2009
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