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Calf Chronicles, 369 Bristol Road, Inglewood (2026)

30/05/2026

Happy Moving Day Poem

There’s a day in New Zealand farming,
when the calendar starts to twitch,
when everyone says “Moving Day”,
because the old name did get ditched.

It lands on June the 1st,
with the timing just divine
when winter’s just arrived
and we're supposed to have spare time.

The ute is full of gumboots,
the trailer’s packed too high,
there’s one child holding toast,
and one about to cry.

The dog is on the front seat,
the cat has gone to ground,
the freezer’s full of mystery meat,
and Dad cannot be found.

The cleaner’s been, the mop has died,
the oven’s seen some sins,
and every cupboard kindly offers
dead flies and curtain rings

There’s a lonely peg, flat batteries,
a toy that no one owns,
six Allen keys, no matching socks,
and a random drawer of stones.

The lawyers have their big day,
the livestock agents charge their phones,
the real estate signs start shifting,
alongside cattle, chattels, loans.

The livestock reps are ringing,
the bankers want a chat,
and someone’s still explaining
which goes where, with that.

The stock trucks thunder down the road,
the cows look unimpressed,
as if they haven’t spent the week
putting every fence to test.

The new shed has “potential”,
the house has “lots of charm”,
which usually means the hot tap sulks
and smells suspiciously like farm.

There’s a school bag in a random box,
the toaster’s in a crate,
the kids start Tuesday somewhere new,
and are yet to find the gate.

New farm, new boss, new neighbours,
new tanker track to learn,
new paddock names that make no sense,
new places to U-turn.

And still, beneath the madness,
the mud and missing gear,
there’s something in the shifting
that rolls around each year.

A changing of the guard, perhaps,
with gumboots at the door,
old keys handed over,
and new dreams on the floor.

So here’s to every mover
on June the 1st each year,
the farmers, staff and families,
and everyone with their gear.

Here’s to the stockies, truckies,
agents, cleaners, drivers, banks and crews,
to the lawyers, schools and neighbours,
and the people making brews.

May your cows walk through the gateway,
may the keys be where they should,
may the power be connected,
and the Wi-Fi half as good.

May the house be warm by bedtime,
may the kids find friends at school,
may the dog not chase the heifers,
and may someone find the tool.

Because June 1st is chaos,
with a livestock truck soundtrack,
but it’s also hope in overalls
and a whole new chance to crack.

A new farm.
A new season.
A new road to call your own.
And as always.... may the box that you marked “kettle” be the first you find at home.

29/05/2026

End of season reflections

There is something strange about the end of the New Zealand dairy season.

The 31st of May sits there like a neat little line in the sand, and we all act as though cows, grass, weather, milk cheques, machinery and life in general have ever once respected a calendar.

For the spring calvers, it can feel like the end of a chapter. Cows dried off or drying off, youngstock ticking along, calf sheds empty, winter plans taking shape, and the next calving season sitting just far enough away to feel theoretical.

And, of course, a nod to the autumn calvers, who are right in the thick of it while the rest of us become reflective about “the season that was.”

Because this time of year does make you look back.

Not only at the milk in the vat or the figures on a spreadsheet, but at the small things that somehow made up the year. The cows that surprised us. The ones we had to say goodbye to. The calves that needed a little extra help. The pens that never seemed to stay clean for more than five minutes. The weather that refused to cooperate. The gates that held, and the ones that absolutely did not.

Looking back over the past year on Calf Chronicles, I have been reflecting on what landed with people, and as usual there is no obvious pattern.

The most popular post was Dry-off Week, the tribute to the cows that came before us and the Hall of Fame.

Apparently you lot enjoy a good cow tribute nearly as much as I do, which is reassuring, because I could happily talk about old cows and their descendants literally until the cows come home.

Other posts that somehow found their way out into the viral world of the elusive algorithm included the types of bloat, worms, ammonia, the 500-day beef heifer, a couple of poems, the coccidiostat poisoning of my dog, who has fully recovered, and my highly advanced baling-twine fence-and-gate system involving the side-by-side.

The algorithm does what the algorithm does. Sometimes a post scribbled down on my phone between jobs, while trying to remember where I left my coffee, takes off. Meanwhile, the carefully researched post that I checked for three evenings lies down in a corner and dies peacefully.

But the posts that mattered most were not always the ones that travelled the furthest.

They were often the ones that opened up a conversation. Johne’s disease, once-a-day feeding, crossbred calves, Jersey beef, untraceable sale calves, and the things we do simply because they have always been done that way.

The comments underneath those posts have become part of Calf Chronicles too. Farmers sharing what has worked on their place. Vets adding context. Rearers passing on practical wisdom. People asking questions, disagreeing respectfully, admitting mistakes, and sometimes giving someone else the confidence to try something differently next season.

That is the bit I keep coming back to.

Because calf rearing is still one of the most unseen and undervalued parts of the dairy industry.

It often happens in the background, squeezed around other jobs, in sheds that were not always designed for the purpose, with tight budgets and a vague instruction to “keep them alive.”

Which is quite the brief, really.

Because calf rearing is not just feeding calves. Done properly, it is skilled technical work and a genuine specialty. It is understanding the biological system, the economic trade-offs, the physical limitations and the realities of looking after young animals in the real world.

It is science, stockmanship, pattern recognition, judgement, timing, and a long list of fairly unglamorous jobs done properly, over and over again, when nobody is watching.

And many of you know exactly what that feels like.

You know the tired walk back to the house after a long day in the shed. The calf you keep checking because something feels slightly off. The satisfaction of seeing a pen of strong, bright calves doing well. The frustration when you do everything right and still lose one. The endless washing, mixing, lifting, cleaning and watching that nobody outside the shed ever really sees.

That work matters. The people doing it matter.

And perhaps that is what this little corner of the internet has become, a place where calf rearing is not treated as an afterthought, where the hard-earned knowledge is shared around, and where the people in the shed feel a little less alone in it.

So thank you for reading along this season, for adding your knowledge, sharing your own experiences, asking good questions, challenging ideas, and helping turn Calf Chronicles into something much bigger than anything I could write on my own.

As for next season, I have a few things up my sleeve, a few trials to play with, and a few refinements to make.

But for now, I am taking a few weeks away from farm things. A breather. A reset. A chance to do a little planning, thinking and resting before the fog rolls back in.

Because every season leaves its mark on all of us.

The cows have carried us through another year. The calves have grown. There have been wins, losses, frustrations, breakthroughs, ordinary days and days that felt anything but ordinary. Somehow, things are held together for another winter, and somewhere in amongst it all, we turn the page into the next season.

So to everyone moving farms, everyone staying put, everyone finishing one season, starting another, or right in the thick of autumn milking, I hope the next chapter is kind to you.

May the calves be strong, the cows settle well, the gates hold, and the weather behave at least occasionally.

See you all on the other side, and into the next season.

My huge gratitude to everyone here.

Ngā mihi nui, mā te wā.

Picture from the entrance to the farm. Another beautiful autumn day beneath Mt Taranaki.

26/05/2026

Neospora.
When a weak calf might be part of a bigger story

Most of the time, when a calf arrives in the shed weak, slow to stand, slow to suck, wobbly, floppy or just not quite right, our brains quite rightly go to the obvious places first.

Was it a hard calving?
Was the calf short of oxygen?
Was it cold?
Did it get enough colostrum, soon enough?
Is it septic, injured, premature, acidotic, mineral deficient, or simply born after a rough start?

Most weak calves are not Neospora calves.

But sometimes a weak calf does not quite fit the normal story, and that is where Neospora is worth having in the back of your mind.

Neospora caninum is a parasite best known in cattle for causing reproductive issues, especially abortions, but it can also be involved in stillbirths, mummified calves, weak calves, calves born with neurological signs, and calves that look completely normal but are already infected before they ever arrive in the calf shed.

It is not really a calf shed bug like crypto, rotavirus or salmonella. It is not usually something that spreads from calf to calf through a pen. It is more of a reproductive disease with calf consequences.

The parasite can be passed from an infected cow to her unborn calf across the placenta, which means the calf may be affected before it is even born. Depending on when that happens during pregnancy, the result might be abortion, stillbirth, a mummified calf, a weak live calf, a wobbly or neurologically odd calf, or a perfectly normal-looking heifer calf that quietly carries the infection into the next generation.

And that is the sneaky bit.

From a calf rearer point of view, I would not be diagnosing every weak calf as Neospora, because most of the time there are far more common explanations. But I would be paying attention to patterns.

The full-term calf that still cannot organise itself.
The calf that is wobbly, trembly, uncoordinated or has odd limb control.
The calf with a poor suck reflex and no obvious reason.
The stillborn or mummified calf that gets mentally filed under “one of those things”.
The calf from a cow that has aborted before.
The calves from a dam line where, once you look back, there are a few too many reproductive question marks.

One weak calf does not mean Neospora. One stillbirth does not mean Neospora. One abortion does not mean the farm dog is guilty, the herd is doomed, and everyone needs to panic.

But repeated abortions, stillbirths, mummified calves, weak calves or neurologically odd calves are worth recording and talking through with your vet, especially if they seem to trace back to particular cow families.

Transmission matters too, because this is where control actually lives.

Dogs are a key part of the Neospora life cycle. They can shed the parasite in their faeces, and cattle can become infected when feed, pasture, water, silage or meal is contaminated. Dogs can also become infected by eating infected placenta, aborted material, dead calves or raw meat, which is why letting dogs clean up after calving is not as harmless as it can feel on farm.

Once a cow is infected, she can then pass it to her calf during pregnancy, so Neospora can come into a herd through dog contamination, but it can also keep moving down through cow families from dam to daughter.

As for treatment options, there is no simple treatment that clears Neospora from an infected cow or calf. No magic injection, drench, powder, supplement or calf shed hack.

For the weak calf in front of you, treatment is still supportive care for the calf you actually have. Warmth, colostrum or milk support, fluids if needed, and a proper look at the more common causes of weakness. If the calf is neurologically abnormal, unable to suck, unable to stand, deteriorating, or simply not making sense, that is a vet conversation.

But if the weakness is due to damage that happened before birth, the options can be limited, and the conversation may become more about prognosis, welfare and whether that calf has a realistic chance of a good life.

On the herd side, control is really about records and management.

Record the dam. Record the calf. Record abortions, stillbirths, mummified calves, weak calves, poor suck reflexes and odd neurological signs. Keep dogs away from placentas, aborted material, dead calves, calf meal, silage faces, feed stores and troughs. Do not let abortion material vanish into the paddock mystery file if it could be tested. And if Neospora is confirmed or strongly suspected, think carefully about breeding replacements from those cow families.

Because a weak calf is not always just a weak calf. Sometimes it is a hard calving, cold stress, infection, bad luck, or the usual brutal mix of springtime chaos, but it could also be the first visible clue in a much bigger reproductive story.

That is why calf rearers matter more than for just the calves in front of us.

We are often the ones close enough to notice the details first. The calf that does not quite fit the normal story. The cow family that keeps showing up. The ni**le that is worth writing down instead of brushing off.

We do not have to know all the answers, and we are not expected to diagnose everything alone. But we can notice. We can record. We can ask better questions. We can raise the flag when something does not quite add up.

Because good calf rearing is not just about saving the calf in front of us, sometimes it is about seeing the pattern early enough to protect the calves still to come.

Today's photo is a little bit more uplifting than the topic. There's something insanely cute about twins. These two bulls were born a few years back and did everything together their whole lives.

25/05/2026

To curd, or not to curd?
Testing your milk powder

This seems to be one of those calf milk powder questions that can get people very animated, and fair enough too, because it does matter, but I also think it is one of those topics where we can accidentally and incorrectly turn one useful test into the whole answer.

Very simplified, most calf milk replacers are built around two main dairy protein components. Casein and whey.

They are both milk proteins, both useful, and both digestible, but they do not behave the same way in the calf.

Casein is the protein that curds. Not always labelled nice and neatly, products that contain caseing include listed ingredients such as-
Skim milk powder
Skimmed milk powder
Dried skim milk
SMP
Whole milk powder
Buttermilk powder
Casein
Caseinate
Sodium caseinate
Calcium caseinate
Milk protein concentrate
Milk protein isolate

So when a casein-based powder reaches the abomasum, which is the calf’s true stomach, the acid and enzymes help form a clot that sits there and breaks down more gradually, releasing nutrients into the small intestine over time rather than everything moving through at once.

That is why people talk about curding as being important, especially for very young calves, bigger feeds, colder conditions, once-a-day systems, or anywhere we are thinking about hunger, gut fill, abomasal emptying and how closely the powder behaves to whole milk.

And to check a casein based product curds as it should, we can do our own DIY curding test. Mix the powder at normal feeding strength, keep it warm around feeding temperature, add rennet, stir gently and leave it for 30–60 minutes.

Casein should form a proper curd, it'll thicken up to a almost soft cheese type consistency. This is how it would perform in a calf digestive tract.

Whey, on the other hand is different.

Ingredients of whey might be labelled as-
Whey powder
Sweet whey powder
Whey protein concentrate
Whey protein isolate
Delactosed whey
Demineralised whey
Milk albumin
Milk globulin
Whey permeate

Whey does not curd, and it is not supposed to.

Whey stays in the liquid phase and generally moves out of the abomasum faster before being digested further down in the small intestine. That does not make whey bad, it makes it different, and I think that is where the conversation needs a bit more room than “curds good, doesn’t curd bad.”

Because there are also products with blends of both. A product needs enough functional casein proteins to find each other, link together, and build that clot structure, so as we dilute the casein fraction with more whey, there may simply be less casein scaffolding available to make a firm visible curd. Which doesn't mean that it isn't "curding."

Typically, when a blend drops below roughly 20% casein, it may not be that the product has “failed” the curding test; it may be that there is not enough casein present to form a strong visible curd in the first place, especially in a basic kitchen-bench style rennet test.

It might still be useful. It might still be doing exactly what it was designed to do. But it probably should not be judged as though it is a high-casein powder, because it is no longer behaving like one.

And that is the distinction I think matters.

A whey-based powder not curding is normal.
A low-casein blend not curding strongly may also be normal.
But if a powder is meant to be highly casein-based and it does not curd at all, then I would be asking more questions, because in that situation curding is part of what we would generally expect it to do.

It might mean the product has less functional casein than assumed, it might mean the casein has been affected by processing, it might mean the test conditions were not quite right, or it might simply mean we need to understand the product better before we decide where it fits.

And that, to me, is the point. A curding test is useful, but it is not the whole nutritional assessment.

It does not tell us everything about ingredient quality, fat handling, mixing, feeding rate, osmolality, age suitability, or whether the powder actually fits the system we are using it in.

So maybe the better question is not just, does it curd?

Maybe it is, should it curd? What is it made from? How much casein is actually in it? How is it designed to be digested? Does it suit the age of the calves, the volume being fed, and the system it is being used in?

Because once we understand those pieces, we are no longer relying on one test, one label, or one opinion.

We are building a clearer picture and that is where better calf rearing decisions in your own system come from.

Image taken from the Milkbar research trial showing what good curding looks like in the abomasum of a calf. This would be similar in a curding test completed with rennet.

https://milkbar.co.nz/en-us/Milk-Bar-Research/Milk-Bar-Research-Trial-2014

23/05/2026

Five Ways to Wellbeing
#5 - Learn

I think this one matters deeply in farming, because farming is really just one long education with no graduation ceremony.

We learn by watching. We learn by doing. We learn by getting things wrong, fixing them, trying again, listening to people who have been at it longer than us, and slowly building that kind of judgement that cannot be downloaded from a PDF or picked up from one tidy workshop.

Experience matters. It really does.

There is a kind of intelligence in being able to walk into a paddock, a shed, a race, or a pen of calves and sense that something is not quite right. There is knowledge in the hands, the eye, the gut, the memory of seasons before this one. Farming carries a lot of that kind of learning, and I think it deserves respect.

But experience can also become a trap when it turns into a fixed mindset.

A fixed mindset is when we start treating knowledge as something we either have or do not have. As if we are either good at something or we are not. As if being a “good farmer” means already knowing, already coping, already having the answers, and never needing to rethink too much. It means dismissing all else, because you just know already.

And farming can be very vulnerable to that, because so much of our identity is tied up in being capable.

We like knowing what we are doing. We like being practical. We like being able to solve problems ourselves. We like backing our own judgement when everything is happening at once and there are animals bawling, weather coming, staff waiting, machinery breaking, and someone has parked exactly where they should not have parked just when the fuel truck or milk tanker arrives.

There is strength in knowing what you know. But there is also risk.

Because if we believe being capable means already knowing, then new information can start to feel like a threat. A different system can sound like criticism. Research can feel like someone from behind a desk telling us we have been doing it wrong. A question can feel like a challenge instead of an invitation. That is where learning gets blocked.

A growth mindset, on the other hand is different. It does not throw experience out. It does not chase every shiny new idea. It does not assume every farm should look the same, because that would be ridiculous and also possibly the quickest way to start a fight at any rural discussion group.

A growth mindset simply says, “I can get better at this.” It says, “What I know now is not the limit of what I can know.” It says, “My eye matters, but maybe the scales will show me something I missed.” It says, “This has worked for years, but is it still working as well as it could?” It says, “I can respect the old wisdom without being trapped by the old habit.”

That is the science of learning in real life. Our brains are not fixed. They keep changing based on what we practice, notice and repeat. Every time we ask a better question, test an assumption, compare outcomes, or connect a new piece of information to what we already know, we strengthen those pathways. That is neuroplasticity. In plain english, it means the brain has the ability to rewire and stregthen on what we focus on.

In other words, the brain gets better at what at what it practices. If it practices dismissing things, we get very fast at dismissing things.
If it practice curiosity, we get better at learning.

Learning through curiosity might be one of the most useful tools we have in farming. It is the little pause between seeing something and deciding we already understand it. It is looking at one pen of calves doing better than another and wondering why. It is reading something that annoys us slightly and asking whether it annoyed us because it was wrong, or because it touched a habit we had not questioned for a while.

That is why Calf Chronicles keeps me sharp.

Every post makes me think harder. Every discussion makes me check what I think I know. Every season reminds me that there is a big difference between knowing enough to get through and staying curious enough to improve.

The more I learn, the more I realise how much I don't know, and strangely, that has become less frightening over time.

There is a kind of freedom in not needing to be the expert. An expert is expected to have the answer whereas a student gets to keep asking better questions.

I am a farmer, an accountant, a calf rearer, a reader of research, a maker of mistakes, a question asker, and occasionally a woman standing in a calf shed wondering how something that looked perfectly sensible in theory has turned into a full circus of an experience I don't care to repeat again.

I will never be an expert, but I can be a continual student.

Curious enough to keep asking. Practical enough to test what matters. Humble enough to update my thinking. Stubborn enough to keep learning until the system works better for both the calves and the humans caring for them.

Maybe that is why learning belongs in the 5 Ways to Wellbeing.

Because learning keeps us engaged with life. It gives us agency. It builds confidence through progress rather than perfection.

And it reminds us that “this is how we’ve always done it” might explain where we came from, but it does not have to decide where we go next.

Picture that was handrawn by Baptiste, one of our long term workaways and dear friends. He spent the summer here practicing his English (the ultimate of learning) and also teaching himself how to draw.

22/05/2026

Power of Colostrum

Not the Bali content I expected, but apparently I cannot even go on holiday without finding calf science in the wild.

I spotted a product here marketed to help prevent traveller’s diarrhoea. Main ingredient being bovine colostrum.

I would still be cautious about assuming any product can do everything the label implies, but the science behind the idea is generally sound.

Colostrum is so much more than “first milk”. In calves, it is their first immune protection. Because of the way the bovine placenta works, calves are born with very little antibody protection in their bloodstream. They rely on colostrum to deliver immunoglobulins, especially IgG, along with lactoferrin, growth factors, antimicrobial proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and a whole package of immune-active compounds.

That is why we talk so much about timing, quality, quantity and cleanliness. In those first hours of life, the calf’s gut is able to absorb large antibody molecules across the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream. That window closes quickly, which is why a good colostrum protocol matters so much.

But colostrum is not only important because antibodies can be absorbed into the bloodstream within 12 hours of birth, it also has work to do inside the gut itself.

Many gut pathogens need to attach to the gut lining before they can multiply, produce toxins and cause disease. Antibodies in colostrum can bind to those pathogens, making it harder for them to stick to the intestinal wall. That is part of the same biological principle behind using bovine colostrum in some human gut-health products.

With traveller’s diarrhoea, one of the common culprits is enterotoxigenic (E. coli). It attaches to the small intestine and releases toxins that draw fluid into the gut, causing watery diarrhoea. The theory with bovine colostrum is that some of those antibodies and immune compounds may survive digestion long enough to act locally in the gut, binding bacteria or toxins before they get too comfortable.

That does not mean it is a guaranteed Bali belly forcefield. The antibody needs to match the pathogen, the dose needs to be enough, and the product has to survive processing, storage and digestion well enough to still be useful. Real life is also messier than a lab trial, because traveller’s diarrhoea can be caused by a whole range of bacteria, viruses and parasites.

But the principle makes sense. Bind the bugs. Protect the gut. Support the immune system where the challenge is happening.

And it is another reminder that colostrum is not just calories, it is targeted, time-sensitive, beautifully complex biology.

Apparently even on holiday, the calf shed follows me.

21/05/2026

Not all calf milk powders are created equal.

And I don’t mean that in a “this brand good, that brand bad” kind of way.

I mean it in the same way we should think about all animal feed in New Zealand. Just because a feed label says it contains a certain level of protein, fat, starch, energy, fibre, or any other nutrient, does not automatically mean the animal can actually digest and use all of it.

The number on the bag tells us what is present. It does not always tell us what is available.

That is a really important distinction when we are feeding calves, because calves are not little compost bins with legs. Their digestive system is still developing, their margin for error is small, and the quality of what goes into them matters.

With calf milk powder, we can get very focused on the headline numbers. Protein percentage. Fat percentage. Lactose. Minerals. Price per bag. Price per calf per day. And all of those things matter.

But they are not the whole story. How the powder is made and what is actually in it matters too.

A lot of calf milk replacer is blended. That means ingredients from different sources are brought together to hit a certain specification. On paper, the finished product may test correctly for protein, fat and lactose. That part is not usually the issue.

The issue is that every batch can be slightly different because the ingredients, source factories, heat treatment, storage history and processing methods can all vary.

And those things can affect digestibility.

A powder can contain protein, but if that protein has been heat damaged or processed in a way that reduces availability, the calf cannot use it in the same way. The lab test may still show protein. The calf may still be drinking it. But what matters is what the calf can actually break down, absorb and turn into growth.

That is where blended products become hard to compare properly.

To truly test digestibility, you need more than a standard nutrient analysis. You need calves. You need controlled feeding. You need time. You need growth data, blood data, input and output measures, and enough consistency in the product to know the results actually mean something.

But with a batch-based blended product, by the time you have done a proper trial, that batch may be gone and the next batch may be made from a different ingredient base.

So what exactly have you tested?

That is why manufactured products are a different conversation. If a product is made from a consistent base, using a consistent process, year after year, then meaningful digestibility testing becomes much more possible, because the product being tested is the product being fed.

This is not about being fancy. It is about reducing the gamble. And it's the reason I get called a cynic when I look at all the marketing hype and guff out there. You actually have to look at what is not printed ont he bag, rather than what is.

It is about asking better questions than “what is the protein percentage?” or “is it premium?” or “has it been batch tested?”

Batch tested for what? Composition? Or digestibility? Because those are not the same thing.

I have written about this before in more detail and I'll revise the posts on the nuances of CMR as I find time. As we head toward another calf season, I think this is one of those areas where we need to keep lifting the conversation.

Not all milk powders are equal. Not all protein is equally available.
Not all labels tell the whole story.

And when we are feeding young calves, the question is not just, “what did I buy?” It is, “what can the calf actually use?”

Because at the end of the day, calves do not grow on marketing claims. They grow on digestible nutrients.

Picture of one of my older veals at 12 weeks old still stuffing his face from last season. By the time they are this age palatability is not an issue, they'd practically drink anything. They are also relying very little on milk for any meaningful nutrients, so a finisher powder at this age works well.

Calf Chronicles

30/05/2026

29/05/2026

26/05/2026

25/05/2026

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22/05/2026

21/05/2026

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