Nuffield #14 Cow Calf Contact in the Wild

Today I ventured out to visit two dairy farms practising cow calf contact, driving six hours and taking in some amazing scenery heading towards the middle of Norway. My first farm sat next to a massive forest and was on the “non predator” side of the river Glomma. This part of Norway is home to the big four predators- brown bears, wolves, wolverine, and lynx- and in some parts their population is controlled to protect livestock and others they have priority. Subject to feet of snow all winter, this was the Norway of photographs and documentaries; spectacularly beautiful.

The second was further south, sitting on the banks of the river Glomma before it enters Lake Oyeren and then filters out into the sea. Both farms were recommended to me by the researchers at NVI, as they were established CCC farms

Vivelstadvea

My first farm started cow calf contact in 2018, when they put up a new shed with cubicles and a Lely robot milker. Before this they ran a tie stall system (like many Norwegian farms), and their main motivation to start cow calf contact was animal welfare. Their milk is sold on a standard contract and they don’t receive a premium for the system- interestingly they are also not an organic farm.

The majority of the herd were Norwegian Red, but a couple of Jerseys were kept for their milk solids

The farm is run by a husband and wife team, plus his father. They both work off farm- he in forestry and she as the equivalent of a DEFRA vet- and he was currently at home on paternity leave. Like the other Nordic countries Norway has generous parental leave which can be split between the two parents, a system which underpins gender equality and better opportunities for working women.

Grazing with the forestry in the background

Based on the edge of the forest, the farm utilises both grass and forest grazing. The milking cows access the forest in the summer before the hunting season (moose) starts, and the pasture is used to grow hay and silage. Bull calves and heifers are granted free access to 30,000 hectares of forest and are tracked using a NoFence collar. In addition, the local farms receive support to hire a person to check the animals grazing in the forest and manage predators.

Milk yield typically drops in the forest due to longer walking distances and higher activity, and their concentrate feed is changed to reflect the different protein content of their diet.

All calves are fed colostrum by bottle

The herd consists of 25 milking cows, mostly Norwegian Red and a few Jersey. Numbers are capped by quota, but they hope to add a few more cows once they build a dedicated outdoor space for cows with calves and dry cows. This will free up space in the main shed for milking cows, and take out the risks of having calves in the same part of the shed as their robotic scraper.

Once calved cows and calves stay in a small pen for a week to bond. The cow is taken out to be milked. While some heifers struggle to let down milk when suckling, for most cows the challenge is the robot being confused by unequal udder fill

Newborn calf in separate pen

After a week the cows and calves join the main milking herd. The calves have a kindergarten area which includes an outdoor space, but when I visited they were all making use of the space in front of each cubicle. The cows graze for a portion of the day and the calves will go out with them to certain pastures. Calves do not graze in the forestry for example. While the calves are suckling the cows average 2.3 visits per day to the robot and typically give around 20 litres with the calf drinking 15-20 litres.

At eight weeks old the calves are separated by being put back into the calving pens, which allows contact with the cow but no suckling. They are trained on to a milkbar and continue on milk until they are about 3 months old. The farmers felt that the calves were unstressed by the process if they were weaned in groups of two to three. During the suckling period the calves learn to eat silage through copying their mothers in the feed area, and also visit the robot to pick up concentrate cake. Since starting the system they felt that heifers were happier to accept the robot because they had been exposed to it so much as calves.

Not in their kindergarten!

The calves I saw looked exceptionally well. They did not experience any major health problems, occasionally they see some scouring calves, but the intake of milk prevents any problems with dehydration. At weaning they were massive, and they maintain their weight and continue to grow after.

The robot measures milk production every day, so there is a record of yields before and after weaning of the calves. This is a good indication of how much the calf is drinking, on indivdual levels and as an idea for the “average” calf.

Calf, almost eight weeks old, explores the robot

The bull calves are castrated and run with the heifers in the forest from a year old until they are finished at 20 to 22 months old. All cows are bred using artificial insemination; all Jersey semen is sexed and sexed Norwegian Red is used on the best cows. All semen is dairy. The dual purpose nature of the Norwegian Red means that bull calves can be marketed for beef.

Most of the cows calve in the spring to make the most of the better milk price in the summer.

When they first changed their system there were not many farms open to cow calf contact, but since then interest in it has really increased amongst farmers and now lots are interested to learn more.

Grondalen Gard

My first farm visited Grondalen as part of their learning about cow calf contact before they changed systems. There were definitely some similarities between how the two farms were run, but also some crucial differences.

Beautiful traditional farm house- bluebells and buttercups carved around the porch

Grondalen is one of the oldest cow calf systems I’ve come across; they started in 1999. The farm itself was much older, the family have been here since the 1600s, and they believe it was originally settled by the Vikings. This was the first time in my travels around Scandinavia that I have actually heard people refer to Vikings (Denmark- and Norway so far- have been remarkably free from Viking souvenirs and references).

In 1999 the farm has 13 cows to meet their quota. They read an article about the welfare implications of tie stall barns, and invited the author to the farm to discuss how they could improve welfare on their farm. This started a conversation about an added welfare brand (which they would get- 15 years later!) and inspired them to try keeping cows and calves together.

When the first cow came out of the parlour and was returned to her calf the family felt that her whole demeanour changed and she “lit up” with happiness. That was enough for them to change their farm to cow calf contact.

Freshly calved cows

The reduction in milk sold due to the calves suckling means that the farm can now run 19 cows, and they became organic in 2005. The cows calve in a straw pen and remain with their calves for five to six days to bond. The majority are fed colostrum by bottle but some that are keen to drink are left to suckle.

After this bonding time they are moved into the main group. The cows are housed on straw and the calves have a kindergarten area. They have access to pasture all year round, apart from a few wet weeks in the autumn and spring. When grazing they can explore the whole grazing platfom, and if any cows don’t return to the shed for the twice a day milking they will respond to a voice call. All the cows have a name.

Kindergarten

Four cows are milked at a time

The parlour takes four cows at a time. Milking like this is important to the business as it gives them an opportunity to check each cow and to not milk any quarters that have been emptied by the calf. The calves drink around 10 litres of milk a day and are weaned from their mothers at two months’ old in a similar separation process to the other farm. They too are then trained to bottle feed. The heifers are weaned as per organic rules, but the bull calves are kept entire and on milk for six months. They are then slaughtered and sold to restaurants or private buyers.

A local tour group brings tourists to the farm to experience milking. They also get to taste milk from different cows and see how each animal produces a different flavour product. For two years a Michelin starred restaurant was given milk from one particular cow to track the change in flavour profile of her milk through the lactation.

Grondalen also feel that weaning and getting the calves to drink from a plastic teat is the hardest part of the system. No calves have died of disease since the system was changed, and the cows were very healthy with an average somatic cell count of around 150,000. Any cases of mastitis are treated with a hot cloth and stripping out.

A well grown bull calf

Hans- who showed me around- believes firmly that we as farmers need to let our cows be the story. They, he says, do all the work, and the farmer is the tool for getting their product to the consumer. The farmer needs a fair renumeration to have a good standard of welfare, but we should be centering individual animals in our narratives. This tied in with something one of the researchers told me yesterday about her decision to no longer use the pronoun “it” in her academic writing when referring to animals, and matches the importance that I place on treating cows as individuals (I was horrified when I started consultancy aged 14 and found out that most cows don’t have names).

In 2008 the farm made their first sale of Nyr; a sour cheese/yoghurt product which they market with their added welfare label. It is sold direct to consumer and to a wholesaler who supplies restaurants; generally they sell 15,000kg a year, plus another 15,000kg of whey is sold to restaurants as a byproduct. Processing is done on farm. They also sell some milk to restaurants, and the balance is collected by Tine, the dairy co-operative.

The added value product is a key part of the business structure, and one that I could tell they were extremely passionate about. It gives them the opportunity to tell the story of their cows and farm, and to make a better margin than they would selling all of their milk to Tine.

Turkeys

Although Grondalen did mention consumer perception, I was struck by how both farms had made their decision to try cow calf contact because they believed it was the best and most natural option for the cow and calf, rather than because they felt that the public would demand it or because they thought it would help them market a product. Indeed, my first farm wasn’t doing any added value sales.

This supported what the researchers had said yesterday about cow calf contact in Norway being a farmer led decision. Admittedly there are factors here which make it a more logical decision than in the UK; small herd sizes, very well designed small barns, a prevalence of robots, but there is definitely a cultural aspect to the interest in cow calf contact from what we would perceive as mainstream conventional farmers.

I’ve really enjoyed my day speaking to these two farmers, who were both passionate and interesting and making choices based on what was best for their animals. It has given me some confidence that cow calf contact farming CAN work on conventional farms, and that we might find a way to make it more widespread in our industry.

Tomorrow I visit another CCC farm in Norway, before making my way to Sweden to speak to researchers at SLU in Uppsala.