Wizardry to ease the calving slog

Calving and the spring is the busiest period in the dairy farmers calendar and any time saving technology is welcome at this time of year.

Calf rearing takes patience and time and women, often dairy farmers wives, dominate this job. Ftting this in with child rearing, time management skills are always needed.

This bit of technology while expensive seems valuable as it uses electronic tags to regulate feeding rates, and ensures shy feeders get well looked after.

Eliminating the tailend, and improving the overall quality of calves reared with less labour seems to be this products advantage. Is this one way the cost of the new electronic tags can be recouped?

Stacey Fatih's cellphone buzzes. It's a text message from her calf feeder: "Stacey, your calf feeder has a fault. It's the latest electronic wizardry designed to take the drudgery out of dairy farming, a machine that automatically feeds calves and texts you when something goes wrong. To Mrs Faith and her husband, Andrew, who milk 400 friesian cows beside the main highway at Te Horo, an hour north of Wellington, the $40,000 German-made Holm and Laue machine is still a new toy reports The Dom Post.

It is nothing flash to look at, just a metal box with four pipelines snaking away to feeding stands. There's time and cost savings but the biggest advantage, and the one that will recover the Faiths' outlay the quickest, is that it ensures each calf gets the same amount of milk. This means the calves are growing faster, all at the same rate with few cases of scours, and they spend less time in the shed before going outside to graze on pasture.

On most farms, calf-rearing is woman's work. It is recognised throughout the dairy industry that women make better calf rearers than men. life. With the addition of lease land, the herd has grown and now 100 replacements are wanted. Another 100 friesian bulls and 100 or more hereford-friesian bulls and steers are also raised.

The newborn calves arrive in the shed after 24 hours with their mothers. First, their navels are sprayed with iodine to prevent infection. They don't receive their first feed till 18 hours later when they can be sure to be hungry. That is because they will be taught how to use a multiple-teat feeder, known quaintly as a calfeteria, a trade name that has become the generic term for such machines.

It is an exacting task. Some calves catch on quick, learning to suck down the colostrum, the milk produced by cows immediately after birth that is rich in proteins and strengthens the immune system. Others are slower to learn or are pushed off the teat by more assertive neighbours. Mrs Faith is constantly on the move, shoving calves into place or dragging off the greedy ones. At the same time, the calves are also fed a molasses-based cereal meal.

After 10 to 14 days they are ready to take the next step. They go on to the automatic feeder to get a warmed mixture of colostrum and powdered milk. Previously, Mrs Faith kept them on the calfeteria and watched as, despite her best efforts, the greedy calves grew quickly and the shy ones did not. Now, the machine takes over that role. Each calf is tagged with an electronic identity so the machine can tell how much milk it has had. They are allowed 2.4 litres twice a day and when that is gone they receive a short burst of water. It lets the calves know they won't get any more milk that day, a signal not all are pleased to get.