NSW dairy farmers Graeme and Lisa Cochrane made the switch to a complete herd of Jerseys four years ago and, in doing so, tasked themselves with rearing the sometimes tricky Jersey calves.
The Cochranes milk 300 Jerseys on 240 hectares in the picturesque Kangaroo Valley, located between the NSW South Coast and Southern Highlands.
They rear every animal born on the farm, which is around 300 per year, over an autumn and spring-drop, with the majority born in the latter.
Mr Cochrane quickly learned that rearing Jersey calves was very different from rearing Holsteins.
"Having been a Holstein breeder for 25 years, I quickly found the way I was raising our Jersey calves was not the way to go without making some changes," he said.
"Jersey calves, being a much smaller animal, required much less milk from a young age than I was used to giving the Holsteins. The incidents of scours was horrendous in the early days with overfeeding them.
"It was a fine line of feeding enough to keep them fit and healthy without them getting scours from too much milk."
Calves are given a good quality calf milk replacer, while milk from cows in the herd with a high cell count is fed to the bull and young steer calves.
They are also fed high protein pellets, ad-lib ryegrass hay made on-farm and ryegrass pasture.
The calves are fed 2.5 litres once per day after they are brought into the shed, with particular attention given to them getting colostrum in the first few hours of being born to provide the calf with the best start in life.
Pellets are introduced from the first month with good quality homegrown hay ad-lib.
Calves are fed four litres of milk from about 10-12 weeks of age and 0.5 kilograms of pellets, depending on how they progress.
"More is added to increase their growth rates if they are all firing along," he said.
"They have access to good quality ryegrass pasture from an early age, and they are weaned off milk and pellets by four to five months of age if the seasonal conditions allow and the calves are going ahead."
From approximately seven to eight months, they are moved to another lease block with quality pasture until joining age.
Wood shavings or rice hulls are the main types of bedding in the calf sheds.
"Rice hulls have been difficult to obtain the past few years, so we currently use wood shavings, but particular care and attention has to be taken with them getting damp and causing disease and infections to multiply quickly," he said.
"Some straw is used but in very limited amounts as it tends to lead quickly to problems if not cleaned out regularly. The wood shavings and rice hulls we tend to layer and clean out annually with good results and don't overcrowd your calf rearing facilities. This is not always easy, but overcrowding leads to problems."
Mr Cochrane also keeps a record of a calf's drenching and vaccination status.
"Calves are kept in smaller batches from a young age where you can pick up calves that may be doing it a bit tougher and noticeably slip back, or a calf will be doing much better and moved up to calves its own size rather than in age groups," he said.
Mr Cochrane is responsible for the calves, so his observations at feeding time are vital for keeping an eye on their health.
"Calves fed milk are kept in small groups of five, and particular attention is given to drinking rates, so all five calves we feed on the teats are all of the same drinking rate as I've found some calves where being pushed off the teat by the stronger calf and subsequently quickly slipping back," he said.
"Observation at feeding time and giving the time just to watch how they drink is crucial for healthy calves."
Mr Cochrane believes you cannot turn a blind eye to mortality rates.
"We have lost calves over time and will in the future, but we always strive to rear each calf to its full potential," he said.
"Understanding and identifying areas that you can improve on, talking to other farmers and our vet helps us produce a better reared calf each year.
"They can be very frustrating and a very time-consuming part of your busy day, but they are your future, and lots of attention needs to be given to calf rearing. It's almost becoming a specialised field."
Heifer calves are joined at 18-20 months of age, and Mr Cochrane believes he is "doing ok" if he rears her for under $2000.
Steers are sold from 15-30 months of age.
"At times, we did sell young sappy bull calves at 10-12 weeks but never got decent money for what they were, so we now keep the steers until they have some size and frame about them and if our seasons are right we keep growing them out, but if we are headed into a tight spot, they are sold off to lighten the load," he said.
