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Calf Chronicles, 369 Bristol Road, Inglewood (2026)

30/09/2026

Front-loading, part seven: and onto weaning

My aim is to take away the last milk without a growth check and with as little stress as possible. By weaning, I mean coming off milk. The meal stays.

In my current system, I expect most calves to be ready somewhere between eight and nine weeks. That’s earlier than I often weaned in my previous, more restricted system. Back then I fed twice a day, then once a day, and could still be trundling milk out at weeks 10, 11 or 12, sometimes even 13 or 14. Finishing earlier saves a lot of work, but I won’t take milk away just to meet an age target.

I’ve deliberately fed plenty of milk in the first four weeks. That has supported strong early growth, but it can also mean the calves eat less meal at first. I’ve prioritised growth early, knowing their meal intake and digestive development then need time to catch up before milk disappears.

That’s why I can’t make the weaning decision from just one number.

Age helps me plan, but two calves of the same age can have eaten very different amounts of meal. Weight shows me what growth they’ve achieved, but not what will support them next.

The widely used benchmark of doubling birth weight by around eight weeks is a good example. For a 40 kg calf, that means reaching 80 kg, or gaining about 0.7 kg a day. It tells me she has grown well. But a little Jersey born at 20 kg has doubled at only 40 kg; some of ours are now over 60 kg, having tripled their birth weight. Doubling birth weight doesn’t tell me that the rumen can take over.

A fixed weaning weight can be just as misleading. Hugh (full name Hugh Jars, if you say it quickly) was born at 52 kg and weighs 93 kg at five weeks. If I used 90 kg as my rule, you could call him at weaning weight. He plainly isn’t. His weight only makes sense alongside his birth weight, age, milk intake, feeding regime, growth trajectory and how much solid feed he has eaten.

My veal calves take that example further. They cruise past 100 kg, then through 130, 140 or 150 kg, with their growth still supported mainly by milk. That’s exactly what I’m aiming for with their diet. Their milk steps down at the very end. Their weight tells me how well that programme is growing them; it doesn’t tell me they’re ready to live without milk which, being veal, they don’t get weaned.

Meal intake gets me closer to the answer, because eating solid feed helps develop the rumen. But even 2 kg eaten today is only a snapshot. What has the calf eaten over the weeks leading up to today?

That’s where cumulative NFC gives me another way to look. NFC includes the starches, sugars and other non-fibre carbohydrates in starter. Research has used around 15 kg consumed over time as an indicator that a calf can extract the expected energy from starter.

I think of the calculation a little like using a Brix meter for colostrum. Brix doesn’t let me see the antibodies themselves; it gives me a useful estimate of colostrum quality. Cumulative NFC doesn’t let me look inside a calf’s rumen either. But by estimating how much of those carbohydrates she has eaten across her life, I get a better idea of how far her ability to use solid feed may have developed. It’s a window into the process, not a direct test or a guaranteed pass mark.

Our oldest mob is now being offered the equivalent of 375 g of milk powder per calf per day, and the mob’s meal intake is moving past 2 kg per calf per day. Eight of the 48 have stopped drinking milk of their own accord. They still visit the feeder to be social, then head off to eat meal.

That meal figure is an average, though. With Jerseys, Friesian crosses, dairy heifers and beef calves all in the mob, I need to watch who is actually eating and competing at the trough. The same goes for milk at a shared feeder, some will drink more than others. So I have to be very aware to not rely to heavily on the average.

I’ll weigh them tomorrow before deciding when to finish their milk. They’ve been meeting my growth targets through the step-down, and I want to see that continuing now that milk is this low. This mob will be closer to nine weeks than eight because of various timing factors this year. That’s fine. Readiness matters more than the date.

If their intake and individual weights support it, I’ll ease away the last milk over the week. The meal and clean water stay available, and I won’t make another big feed or paddock change at the same time. I’ll weigh them again about 10 days after milk finishes to check whether each calf is still gaining. That follow-up matters it tells me whether all the signs I used to make the decision added up to a calf who could actually keep growing.

Saving weeks of milk feeding is a welcome benefit of front-loading when the transition works well. Readiness is the decision; continued growth after the last drink is how I check it.

Picture of Hugh (at the back) at 93kgs and 5weeks old with his 70kg friend. Hugh is by the Black Simmental bull Bounty Hunter (I love these calves) and 702 in front is by the Belgium Blue bull Glencardoch Marvel who is also a favourite.

When you standardise for % of birthweight growth, 702 has actually grown better. 36.5 kgs to 70kgs vs 52kgs to 93kgs. (The geek in me likes the numbers side of things)

29/09/2026

Loss #4
Catastrophic gut failure???

We were out for a very rare dinner with friends last night when our wonderful neighbours messaged to say one of the calves in the paddock next door didn’t look right.

When we got home, we drove down and found number 340 sitting in the gateway. She was a 52 day old Jersey cross heifer, living outside on once a day milk, meal and grass. She’d drunk her milk that morning with no sign of a problem. Her paddock mates were bright, happy and curious about why we were there.

340 couldn’t stand. Her belly was round and distended, but soft, with a strange splashy sound when I moved her. Her ears and mouth were extremely cold. She was trembling slightly and grinding her teeth.

We lifted her into the vehicle and took her back to the calf shed. I wanted light and my equipment to assess her properly, and I couldn’t leave her in the gateway where the rest of the mob might stand on her during the night.

As we put her in, she scoured. The smell was awful, almost gangrenous. There was mucus and undigested meal in it, what looked like milk curds, and black, tarry blood. It was a very unusual consistency.

By the time we reached the shed, she was groaning and thrashing in pain. She could no longer hold her head up. Over the next ten minutes she seemed to get colder, and her distress kept increasing.

I was trying to piece together how a calf who had drunk normally that morning could be so desperately ill by night. Running through options, looking for clues.

The dark, tarry blood made me wonder about bleeding higher up the digestive tract, possibly from an abomasal ulcer. Significant blood loss could explain some of the signs of shock. An ulcer can also perforate, allowing contents to leak into the abdominal cavity and causing severe pain, although bleeding and perforation don’t necessarily happen together.

Her swollen, splashy belly raised other questions. Was fluid building up inside a distended abomasum or section of bowel? Could part of her gut have twisted or become obstructed and lost its blood supply? Or was there fluid outside the gut because something had ruptured? I couldn’t tell by feeling her belly.

Severe haemorrhagic enteritis was another possibility. That could account for the blood, the smell and the speed of her decline, and Clostridium was one of the organisms that crossed my mind. We have vaccination protocols in place, but they cannot prevent every individual case.

The rest of her mob being well was reassuring, and the speed of her decline helped thinking that infectious disease such as salmonella and coccidiosis was unlikely, though it couldn’t settle what had happened to 340.

Those were the possibilities running through my head. But however much I investigated, what was in front of me was a calf in a catastrophic state, whose pain we couldn’t manage on farm. Finding the exact cause was going to take time she didn’t have and even if I did know exactly what the cause was, the outcome of survival was extremely poor.

We needed to make a decision for her, rather than keep examining her while she suffered.

Our choices were to call the vet or euthanise her. We did consider calling, but given how rapidly she was deteriorating, I thought the vet would very likely advise euthanasia too and a 10pm vet post mortem on a Tuesday night seemed a bit of a stretch.

She was likely one of those calves we would otherwise have found dead in the paddock the next morning. Our neighbours finding her meant we had the chance to spare her those hours.

So we chose to euthanise her promptly.

There was also a cow with milk fever to attend to and newborn calves to bring into the shed. I didn’t have the stomach to do a post-mortem myself that night, particularly after that smell, so all I could do was end her pain, cut out her tags, and I went back to the living calves and cows who were waiting for me.

I’d have liked to know exactly what happened, but I’m not skilled enough in post mortem yet and unlikely to have the time or space today either. So, the questions will never be answered. Sometimes that’s part of calf rearing too, you do the best you can for the calf in front of you and that’s where the story has to end.

29/09/2026

Winning Wednesday.
Remembering to remember is not a strategy.

If I needed to mix four and a half bags of milk powder in one mix, before I start, I take out five bags and unwrap them. I add the half bag first and put the remaining half to one side. Then I work through the four full bags I set out.

That setup does more than help me keep count. It’s a safety stop. I’ve only set out the powder this mix needs. The half bag to the side shows me that the half has already gone in, and the full bags waiting show me what’s left. I’m not trying to count the empty bags that have built up over the last couple of days and remember which ones I used today. I’m also not reaching for another bag because I’ve lost track halfway through.

I might be called away, someone else might need to finish the mix, or my mind might wander to the next twelve jobs while I’m still standing at the mixer. The bags still tell us where the job is up to. There’s nothing worse than thinking, was that the 4th bag? Was there one more? Or am I thinking of the mix before this one?

This is an example of the simple systems we teach newcomers on the farm. Once you’ve done a job for years, you can forget how much thinking went into it when you first learned. A new person is already remembering the recipe, learning the equipment and finding their feet with the calves. We can make their life easier by showing them how to set up the job so the right amount is there in front of them and their progress is obvious, measurable and anyone can step in.

Psychologists call this cognitive offloading, essentially it’s letting your surroundings hold information that your brain would otherwise have to keep track of. The art is to make it deliberate.

So we teach the little habits that make a mistake harder to make, even when someone is learning, distracted or interrupted.

That’s a much better backstop than asking anyone to remember to remember.

Anyone else got some cognitive offloading habits they use?

28/09/2026

Front-loading, part six: the maths needs to math
Conceptually what’s happening on farm right now

My calves have had plenty of milk early and have already stepped down to a lower, steady allowance. Now I’m standing at the meal trough asking a different question, if I take away more milk, is this calf eating enough to keep growing?

For my Jersey-cross dairy heifers, I’m aiming for an average of 0.7–0.8 kg of liveweight gain a day. That works out to roughly 10–11 kg between fortnightly weigh-ins. Doubling birth weight by around eight weeks is a widely used international benchmark, and I want them to reach it. Then I want them to keep going, rather than flattening out as the milk comes down.

Several things are changing at once. Milk is falling and meal intake needs to rise. The rumen is developing in response to the solid feed the calf has eaten. The calf herself is getting heavier, so she needs more energy just for maintenance before there’s anything left for growth. Temperature can change that requirement again. And she’s grazing, which gives her something extra, but exactly how much grass she’s eating is a wild card I can’t easily put into the calculation.

At 135 g of milk replacer per litre, reducing an allowance from six litres to five removes 135 g of powder a day. I can’t assume an extra 135 g of meal replaces it exactly, and I can’t confidently plug in a precise amount of grass either. Before I reduce the milk again, I want to see meal intake lifting and the weights showing that growth has continued.

I use two calculations for different reasons. A calf growth calculator (I use the NRC app) uses the milk allowance, current starter intake, calf weight and ambient temperature to estimate the daily gain the ration might support now. Then the cumulative NFC intake looks backwards. It adds up the non-fibre carbohydrates the calf has consumed from starter across her life. Research suggests that cumulative intake is a useful predictor of how far her rumen has developed to digest solid feed. Today’s meal intake tells me what she’s eating; cumulative NFC tells me something about the preparation behind it and where the rumen is up to.

Then I check the calculations against the calves in front of me. Mine are late starters on meal because they’ve had generous milk allowances, at this stage I want their intake gathering pace. I watch them eat and graze, notice whether they’re settled, and weigh them roughly every fortnight to check that they’re still following the growth trajectory I’m after. I line those weigh-ins up with vaccination or drenching when those jobs are due, so I’m gathering the information while we already have the calves in hand.

If the calculator suggests they should be gaining 0.7–0.8 kg a day but the scales show a flat patch, I’ve got something to investigate before taking away more milk. If meal intake is climbing, the calves are coping well and their weights keep moving up, I can take the next step. The grass may be helping more than my calculation allows for, but the scales show me the combined result.

That’s the dance for me. milk coming down, meal coming up, maintenance needs rising, grass adding an uncertain extra, and liveweight still climbing through it all as their rumen keeps developing.

Picture taken a couple of days ago. I was perhaps a few days late in starting to get out the open troughs out along side the meal savers. The meal savers (yellow lidded bins) are great for keeping starter meal fresh and dry, but they do limit access to calves as they fit a max of 6 around them at any one time. This mob was finishing milk and then all heading over for meal at once, so time to get the open troughs out to allow it. They’re getting adlib meal in the meal savers so there’s always access and some in the open troughs so it can cope with everyone wanting some at once.

27/09/2026

Types of Bloat

“My calf is bloated.” What does that actually mean?

Following the discussion about suspected clostridial bloat, it’s useful to look at what else might sit behind that sentence. Bloat describes a calf with a swollen abdomen, but it isn’t one diagnosis. The swelling might be in the rumen or the abomasum, and even ruminal bloat has different causes.

A few details help narrow down the possibilities: Where is the swelling? Did it appear suddenly or keep coming back? Did it follow milk, meal or pasture? Is the calf still bright, or showing signs of pain?

This is important as bloat is not all equal and neither is the treatment and management. I’m always a bit hesitant to give a one size fits all management plan to someone who says they’re dealing with bloat as it’s so multi faceted.

So let’s dive in.

Swelling high on the calf’s left often points towards the rumen. If it feels tight and drum-like and often sticks up to be almost level or exceeding the spine, gas may be collecting because the calf cannot belch it out. This is free-gas bloat. An oesophageal blockage, illness or poor rumen movement can be behind it. Calves that have been sick or very stressed are often prone to this. A tube that reaches the rumen will often release a rush of gas, but a calf that bloats repeatedly needs the reason investigated further. Keeping objects or feed that could lodge in the oesophagus out of reach and avoiding abrupt concentrate changes may reduce some of the risks.

The same left-sided swelling could instead be frothy bloat. Here, gas is trapped in tiny bubbles throughout the rumen contents, so a tube passed down may release only a little gas if any at all. This is more the classic bloat you’ll see in adult cattle. Lush pasture (especially clover where we are) finely ground feed and starter meal, high-grain rations or a sudden gorge on meal can contribute. An antifoaming treatment in the rumen can help break up the foam or in a pinch this is the type of bloat that can benefit from vegetable oil to suppress the foam. Gradual feed changes, suitable roughage, clean water and avoiding large swings in meal intake are useful prevention steps.

For a milk-fed calf that bloats after feeding, another possibility is milk entering the rumen. Milk should normally bypass the rumen and go to the abomasum. If it ends up in the rumen, it can ferment and cause gas and acidosis. Repeated swelling after milk feeds, dullness or poor growth may offer clues. Feeding consistency, teat flow and position, drinking speed, illness and stress are all worth considering. Releasing gas may relieve the swelling without fixing why milk is taking the wrong route. Oesophageal groove dysfunction is an issue that often goes undiagnosed and is a post for another day.

Swelling lower down or more towards the right raises concern about the abomasum, the true stomach where milk belongs. The side alone cannot confirm it. A calf with abomasal bloat may suddenly stop drinking, grind its teeth, kick at its belly, repeatedly get up and lie down, or become dull quickly. Milk remaining in the abomasum can allow rapid fermentation and bacterial overgrowth; clostridial bacteria are associated with some severe cases. Large feeds, mixing errors, abrupt changes, contamination, fortification, milk powders with high lactose or undigestible products in them or an already damaged gut may contribute. Consistent milk preparation and volumes, clean equipment and avoiding sudden changes can help reduce risks, but they cannot rule this out. A calf in pain suspected abomasal bloat needs urgent veterinary care.

The difference between bloats matters because the treatments are not interchangeable. Oil or a rumen bloat product put down a tube goes into the rumen. It may help frothy ruminal bloat, but it will not deflate a swollen abomasum. Drenching a distressed calf also risks aspiration into the lungs with no hope of any real benefit.

And then there’s those that still recommend Baking soda. Let’s be clear, is not a general treatment for bloat. It does not release trapped gas, break up froth or decompress the abomasum. In an acidic rumen, it can produce more gas as it reacts and potentially make bloat worse if the calf cannot belch.

So when someone says their calf is bloated, the next step is to find out what else is happening, work out what is actually bloating rather than assuming all swollen calves need the same remedy, have the same cause or benefit from the same prevention.

Picture today, I haven’t had a bloated calf yet this year so no relevant picture. This fluffy jersey behind in the centre of the picture is #222 Alaska, the calf we treated for hypothermia earlier on in the season. Shes just gone 6 weeks old and had 10 days outside now and is doing well.

26/09/2026

Calf Confessions
The road from burnout - sometimes you have to start very, very small with gratitude.

Years ago and skating along the knife edge of total burnout, I started to work with a mind empowerment coach. When I first started doing this kind of work, I honestly didn’t feel particularly grateful for much. Sure, I knew I was lucky in some ways and I could see that on paper, but a lot of the rest of it felt like hard slog, and at the time there were plenty of things that simply weren’t going that well either. My coach and I wrestled with gratitude week after week because every time she asked me to name something I was grateful for, my brain immediately started arguing with it. In exasperation one day she said, lets just start small, lets go tiny. Can you say in the morning:

“I’m grateful my coffee is hot.”

And my brain launched into - well, of course it’s hot. I worked my butt off to pay for the power, I bought the kettle, I bought the coffee and I boiled the water. That was genuinely how my brain worked, and I think a lot of farmers will understand that more than they realise because we train ourselves every day to notice what is wrong and to just get on and be practical and fix it.

You walk into a paddock and notice the lame cow before you notice the nice sunrise. You walk into the calf shed and spot the one calf standing slightly differently before you notice the other thirty looking fantastic. You hear the change in a pump, see the trough running low, notice the fence wire hanging a bit differently, pick up that something is just not quite right. That isn’t being negative, it is part of being good at the job. We are constantly looking for the exception because the exception is the thing that needs action, while the 99 things that are going perfectly well usually don’t need anything from us.

The problem is that your brain gets very good at what you repeatedly ask it to do, and mine had become extremely good at scanning for problems. So when something went right, I barely noticed it because there was always another job, another issue, another thing to think about. Something good would happen and my brain would simply go, “Great, next.”

I also think there was another battle going on underneath it. I had worked bloody hard for most of what I had, so being told to feel grateful sometimes felt almost insulting. Grateful to who? I did the work. I got up early, made the decisions, carried the risk, paid the bills and kept going through the bits that were awful. There was part of me that thought acknowledging luck or gratitude somehow took away from that, as though saying something had gone my way meant I had to hand back some of the credit for everything I had worked so incredibly hard for.

It took me a long time and a lot of standoffs with my poor coach to realise that gratitude wasn’t asking me to do that. I could still be proud of the work and acknowledge that something good had happened. Those two things could sit beside each other without cancelling each other out.

Before that lightbulb moment, gratitude had somehow turned into another job I was failing at, another thing I was apparently supposed to be doing better. So I had to make it ridiculously small. Not “What are you grateful for in your life?” because that was far too big and loaded, but more like, “What is actually nice right now?” The coffee is hot. The sun has come out. There is a gap in the traffic when I am running late. A calf does something that makes me laugh. You find the thing you thought you had lost.

The real work for me was learning not to immediately explain those things away, fix something else or move on to the next job, but just let the moment be good for a minute.

These days I notice what people call glimmers, which is really just a fancy word for those tiny bits of good stuff that happen through the day. A random beautiful feather left behind by a wood pigeon, a really good cup of coffee, the smell of rain, someone saying exactly the right thing, the gate being open when you thought you would have to get out, or a little bit of timing that just works in your favour. Nothing major or life-changing, just small moments that make the day a little nicer if you are actually present enough to notice them.

And today’s ultimate calf-rearer glimmer that got me thinking about all this again was ridiculously satisfying. As I wind the calves back to once-a-day feeding, I end up with a few partly used bags of milk powder sitting around because I use several different types at different rates. Today, completely by accident, every single one of those part bags lined up perfectly with what I needed. Every bag finished, nothing left over, no awkward scoop sitting in the bottom and no annoying half bag hanging around for tomorrow. They all just worked out perfectly, and the level of satisfaction was completely disproportionate.

But maybe that is the point. For me, gratitude didn’t suddenly arrive as some big life-changing feeling. It started with noticing small things and learning not to argue with them. Hot coffee, a feather, a gap in the traffic, a strangely perfect coincidence, and apparently several completely empty milk powder bags.

Maybe that last one is just a calf rearer thing.

25/09/2026

There’s a strange little pause in the calf shed at the moment.

We haven’t brought in any calves from other farms this year, so the pace has followed the cows calving here. And right now, they seem to have taken a collective breather.

Just 12 left to calve.

I can feel myself starting to wind down, even though there are still plenty of calves to feed and care for. It’s the beginning of the end of the season… that point where you can finally see the other side, but you’re still waiting for the last few girls to get on with it.

Come on, girls.

25/09/2026

Farm Vehicle Safety
Is That Load Too Heavy?

Bringing this post back up from last season as it’s just as relevant now.

It's that time of year in NZ where Spring calves are heading outside and towed mobile feeders come to the fore.

One of the biggest safety hazards on farm I see a lot is overloaded vehicles towing things that are too heavy for them.

Quad bikes especially are incredibly useful, but they have their limits. The danger isn’t just whether the bike can pull something, it’s whether it can control and stop it safely in the terrain you’re asking them to cover. When they can’t, that’s where people get hurt and the outcome of a rollover is serious.

Our milk mixer (pictured) holds 1,000 litres and weighs about 400 kg empty. Once full that makes it’s 1.4ton of unstable liquid cargo which can move and cause even more force in one direction.

A quad bike or our Canam side by side (who’s own weight is likely to be 450kgs to 900kgs) could drag it, but the moment you go downhill, brake suddenly, or turn sharply, the mixer will control the vehicle, not the other way around. And that's where things get very dangerous.

Signs your load is too heavy for your vehicle include:

The trailer feels like it’s pushing you when you brake.

Steering becomes light or skittish.

The vehicle starts to struggle for traction or lift on the front.

The weight of the trailer is more than the vehicle itself (a good rule: if it looks heavier than the vehicle, it probably is).

On slopes, you feel like you’re fighting the trailer instead of controlling it.

Not to mention the ongoing damage to machinery. Flogging it above its capacity is the fastest way to wreck suspension, transmissions, braking systems and ultimately cost you a lot of money, time and hassle with repairs in the long run.

Common overload traps on farms include mobile calf feeders and calf trailers loaded with calves. You think that you’ll double up and take all the milk in one load without taking into account and calculating the actual weight of it.

I'm not saying everyone needs to go out and buy the flashest equipment, but thought needs to be put into providing vehicles that are fit for purpose. Not only will this help protect the safety of you and your staff, it'll prolong the life of your equipment by not thrashing it past its limits.

The job might still get done with something smaller, but it might also end in a rollover, damage or injury. The safer choice is always to match the vehicle to the weight you’re likely to tow and have everyone get home safely at the end of the day.

Picture of the mighty "Dinky" tractor that is my work horse this time of year. Even with Dinky I’ll avoid filling the milk mixer right up. All up Dinky is around 1,350kgs. I’m mindful to keep loads under this.

This milk mixer can push our Canam side by side round when it's only a third full.

24/09/2026

The new dairy cattle welfare code is here and comes into action April 2027

After several years of consultation, New Zealand has a revised Code of Welfare for Dairy Cattle. It was released this week and takes effect on 19 April 2027, giving farms time to look at their systems before next season.

The main change for calf rearing is that, for their first two weeks, calves must have access to milk or milk replacer at least twice a day unless they are fed ad libitum. That last part matters. An ad-lib calf with milk available to drink is specifically accounted for in the wording.

Those that feed once a day from an early age will need to adjust their system to meet the new minimum welfare standards.

The new code sets minimum standards for sufficient liquid feed, colostrum, the opportunity to suck, suitable feed through weaning, and fibrous feed from one week of age. It contains some clear guidance on techniques for actions such as euthanising animals.

It appears calves are now included in cow housing standards and environments such as bedding and ammonia levels now have clearer standards.

After my first read, I think that it’s worth opening and reading the actual code, especially if you rear calves. Some sentences are minimum standards and others are recommended best practice. They carry different weight, and apply differently to different systems.

https://www.mpi.govt.nz/dmsdocument/72720-Code-of-Welfare-Dairy-Cattle-2026-comes-into-effect-on-19-April-2027

Calf Chronicles

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