At Leppington Pastoral Co we take great care and effort with the rearing of our young stock.

Once the calves are born they are identified with an electronic tag (NLIS tags) so we can trace their life history. This also includes details about her ancestry.

The calves are then fed colostrum which contains numerous antibodies from their mother. This helps protect the calf against various diseases that she may come into contact with.

Calves on our dairy farm are currently reared using two different processes. One involves teaching calves to drink out of a bucket, then manually feeding each calf daily. This system has been quite successful but with the introduction of technology, automatic calf feeding is starting to be used at our operation.

We are now using a pasteuriser to treat milk from the hospital cows to feed the calves.  This uses the same technology that is used when milk is pasteurised for human consumption,  This helps remove any harmful bacteria from the milk that might be a disadvantage to the calves.

Automatic Calf Feeder

Some calves are now fed through a Westfalia-Surge automatic calf feeder. This system uses their electronic ear tags to identify them. The calves walk into a milk dispensing unit whereby a computer chip registers the calves number and feed plan. The unit will dispense the appropriate amount for that calf and recalculate her feed plan. A grain dispenser also monitors calves intake of solid feed. Once calves consumption increases above 1kg per day, this indicates the calves rumen has developed thus commencing the weaning program.

This technology allows a closer monitoring of the calves diet and well being. Sick calves can be monitored more efficiently and electrolytes or other medication given through the milk dispensing unit.

Calves have adapted well to this facility. This system allows calves to move freely within a large pen, and have the ability to receive milk 24 hours a day (depending on their dietary plan).

Once the calves are weaned off milk they have access to grazing land and are also fed a ration developed by a nutritionist.

At approximately 6 months of age they are then transported to our cropping property at West Wyalong.  The property is called Billabong Station where there is 10,000 Ha of land.  Depending on the amount of feed available for the heifers they may be given conserved feed to maintain their growth rate.
The heifers are then bred to Friesian bulls via Artificial Insemination.  These are bred using synchronization so they can be bred on the same day.  Any heifer that does not conceive will hopefully be picked up by the bulls that we use on the farm.

Once the heifers have been declared pregnant they are then transport back to the Bringelly properties.  Prior to calving the heifers are vaccinated and fed in our maternity area where they will be closely monitored prior to calving.  Once calved the heifers will enter the milking facility.