Hales Pasture, located in Knutsford, Cheshire has been proactively working with the NWF Youngstock Team to maximise the health and performance of their youngstock. Working closely with NWF Youngstock specialist Lucy Richardson, the farm has implemented tailored nutritional strategies and worked on calf management to support optimal growth.
Over the last seven months, Hales Pasture farm has seen a remarkable transformation in their calf rearing performance. Historically, calves were fed whole milk taken from a number of cows with low somatic cell counts that didn’t perform well on the Lely milking robots. Milk was then taken over to the youngstock and dry cow site in drums, often arriving cold and with inconsistencies in quality, both impractical and not offering optimal nutrition for the calves.
With guidance from Lucy, the farm invested in a heated milk trolley and made the switch to Trouw Energizer Calf Milk Replacer, mixed and fed fresh on farm, offering warm, palatable milk daily, with intakes drastically increasing almost immediately. The results so far have been nothing short of impressive, daily liveweight gain (DLWG) has tripled, from 0.3kg per day up to over 1kg per day. Calves are fed up to 8L a day of milk replacer to support DLWG.
Tracking the data, the NWF youngstock team visit Hales Pasture twice a month to carry out weighing and health checks, working with herdswomen Laura on feeding rates, weaning rates and calf health protocols. “These regular weighing’s and check-ins have been critical to improving growth rates, and has already helped out bottom line, with reduced vet and antibiotic costs, along with getting replacements into the milking herd quicker,” says Laura. 
The 100-head Holstein herd calves all year round, with all calves exclusively reared from the main herd as replacements, nothing is bought or sold at the farm. The closed herd approach makes calf health and growth key to the long-term success of the herd and the bottom line of the farm.
From day one, calves are offered a rearer nut, alongside ad-lib straw to help with rumen development and microflora, whilst also providing excellent levels of rumen digestible fibre, The calves are fully weaned at 10-12 weeks and fed approximately 2kg of rearer nuts. Nuts were chosen over a typical calf starter pellet to further help with rumen development and drive dry matter intakes. NWF Agriculture manufactures a range of rearer nuts to complement a range of feeding systems, whether grass-silage based or straw-based systems.
This structured feeding regime, combined with the updated consistencies, has created a robust, wellmanaged and efficient rearing system.