Rob and Heather Calder from Wandilla Holsteins at Leongatha North use Lely units to help rear calves, in a new shed set up specifically for the future.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
Rob, awarded a master breeder by Holstein Australia, admits to a passion for genetics that has historically included 27 on-farm sales to sell surplus animals.
His parents established the dairy farm and Rob followed them into the industry.
“When I left school, I had a great passion for genetics and used to do a lot of showing cattle,” Rob said.
“We used to go to Melbourne Show and do about 15 local shows a year, and I had a lot of success.
“We ran on-farm sales to sell our surplus animals, and we’ve sold them at up to $12,000 for one cow.
“Since the export heifer sales have created an easier income stream, though, the on-farm sales have disappeared, because it was an expensive thing to do.”
About 90 per cent of the herd is bred to sexed Holstein semen. The remainder are bred to either Wagyu or red Akaushi semen, in a value-adding enterprise.
“The cows that do the best calve in March, because the weather is warmer,” Rob Calder said.
“We calve March and July.
“July is normally fairly cold and wet, and it takes a while until the spring comes for the cows to get going.”
The 450-head milking herd typically calves down 400 progeny in a split-calving system each year. Milking is twice a day, using a 30-a-side herringbone dairy.
The total dryland property is 700 acres, with about 400 acres used for the milking herd.
“We’ve got a lot of river flat that follows the river around, that’s the best part of our farm,” Rob said.
The property is set in steep country, and 300 acres is used to harvest fodder.
Heifers are grown out on another 450-acre farm at Leongatha, then brought back to the dairy farm prior to point of calving.
Rob and Heather employ four permanent staff and two part-time workers, and Rob still works on the farm.
“I’m floating around, but I don’t do too much,” he said.
Installing the Lely calf rearing system was about creating efficiencies in workflow.
“The reason we built this shed was to cut down on workload,” Rob said.
“My job has been to rear the calves, and I’m just not as young as I used to be.
“Carrying the buckets of milk around has become too much work. We used to feed the calves in a trough system, filling it using buckets.
“Now I’ll just come into the shed in the morning and just check that every calf has fed.
“I top up the milk powder and do any cleaning, and just have a look around at the calves and the conditions they’re living in, and make sure everything’s sort of laying down happily.”
The software in the system identifies calves by their eartags and collaborates with a mainframe database to ensure they receive their daily measured ratio of milk and grain.
The purpose-built shed was designed to include a five-station Lely Calm calf feeder, five automated grain feeders, rapid empty drinking troughs and two different styles of automated brushes.
The calf feeders were installed supported with automated cleaning software, to ensure hygiene.
Installing the calf feeders created an instant change in the system where previously milk powder was mixed with water, then transferred from buckets to a trough system.
Rob said he and his manager, Steve White, now spend only 20 minutes each day in the shed, because of system automation.
They have been using the new system since autumn calving in 2023.
“We were weaning good calves before we built this system, but it was pretty hard work,” Rob said.
“We were feeding them in troughs using buckets. The lifting of the buckets is why we went this way.”
The introductory area of the shed contains two training pens, each with automated feeders.
“When calves arrive in the shed, they receive four litres of colostrum, over three feeds if possible. Then we spend time training them to suck milk using teats,” Rob said.
“Previously we had them feeding in troughs and we couldn’t monitor how much milk each calf was getting.”
The calves move into the greater area of the calf rearing shed, preferably aged about seven days. But they could be up to a fortnight old, depending on how long it takes them to learn to use the automated milk and grain feeders.
This shed is where they live until weaning.
As the calves progress through the shed, each milk feeding stall enables 30 calves to access milk at a daily rate of two litres each.
“Now I come down in the morning, put the milk powder in the machine, and everything is all fed,” Rob said.
“I check there’s no faults in the system, and make sure the cleaning system is working.”
The automated grain feeders ensure two kilograms of grain is available to each calf.
“We set the grain portion per calf as part of a grain feeding plan, based on what we want the calves to try and achieve,” Rob said.
“They come in and have their milk, come back at their leisure and get their grain.
“The feeding plan here is seven days on three litres of milk, then another two weeks where they ramp up from three to five litres, then they’re on five litres for 40 days.
“Then over 10 days they’re weaned from five litres to one-and-a-half litres of milk.
“The grain plan is 10 days of 200 grams, then it’s ramped up over a couple of weeks from 200 grams to two kilograms. Then for the next 100 days, even after weaning, they can access two kilograms of grain a day, until they’re taken out of the shed.”
Ad-lib hay and water are available to each calf.
Rob said he and the team monitors the data to identify if any calf is not taking its allocated milk and grain ration each day.
“If you’re looking at the graphs reporting milk and grain intake, you’ll get to know the calves that are struggling,” he said.
“You want a calf that eats two kilograms of grain and if they’re only eating 0.5kg, we’ll go and push it in and see if it’ll eat a bit more.
“The same system applies to the milk, you may go and get a calf and push it in to drink more milk.”
The shed infrastructure and automated milk feeders are cleaned twice a day, at 8am and 1pm.
“We’ve set the system for two circuit cleans a day of the milk feeders, and it puts water through the lines then as well,” Rob said.
The water troughs are designed to tip and fill and are set up over concrete. Manually, somebody pulls a lever to tip the trough, then it is flushed, cleaned, righted and filled with clean water. It can also be cleaned automatically.
“When calves defecate into the trough — which happens — the regular tip and fill means they have ready access to clean water,” Rob said.
“When it tips out the dirty water, or when calves flick water out of the trough, the water drops on to the concrete pad and that’s connected to a drain.
“It means the area is easy to clean, and the animals’ bedding stays clean for longer.”
Rob said the automated brushes were popular with his calves.
“The calves don’t seem to choose one brush over the other,” he said.
“The blue brush will do around the body, whereas the other one the calves use to get under the top and bottom of their necks and then to brush their backs.”
Plans include extending into an outdoor grazing area for the older calves. That will require extensive earthworks.
“We’ve got plans for that excavation and then we’ll be able to let the calves out on a sunny day,” Rob said.
“We’ve just got about 30 other things happening at the same time, at the moment.”
A more recent addition to the shed is solar power, to offset the risk of storm outages, which is a regular occurrence.
A storm in spring 2024 caused the power to be out for six days, which meant the shed needed generator backup to keep the automated system working.
“It took a few days to get back on track after the power outage and make sure all the calves were being fed right,” Rob said.
A line of pipe has also been installed that would enable milk to be pumped from the vat to the calf shed, but that hasn’t been initiated.
“I think powder is probably easier and the calves are going okay on it,” Rob said.
After weaning, the calves go to the second farm at Leongatha to grow out. They return to the dairy farm as grown heifers just prior to point of calving.