Nuffield #8: Cow Calf Contact in Cornwall and Devon
The youngest calves on the farm with their foster mothers
Cornwall is many things, but the one thing it isn’t is convenient to drive to. So tantalisingly close across the Bristol Channel, but almost six hours in the car to get down to its lonely western tip. The 4am alarm was however worth it, to spend the morning with a dairy farmer running a foster calf system on his once a day milking spring block herd.
I had convinced myself i was lost, such was the un-dairylike condition of the fields I passed. I was at the point of pulling over to phone for directions when the rough brown grass gave way to fields rippling with plantain and dotted with concrete water troughs, and I recognised the telltale signs of a spring calving farm. Then I saw on the right, several paddocks away, a mob of unmistakable grazing rats. I wasn’t lost after all.
On the yard I was greeted by two Huntaway dogs, a simple yard set up (no cow sheds!) and two men sorting out a trailer. An Arla sign advertised their milk contract. Space was cleared in the pickup and I climbed in to the back and pushed aside a four pack of Thatcher’s cider and the general detritus of farming before being told to sit in the front. With three new foster mothers and a fresh heifer calf loaded in the trailer, we set off down the farm drive to the foster unit, me scribbling notes while holding a glass of water. Nothing like getting straight in.
This was the first foster calf system I’d seen in the UK- a type of cow calf contact system where calves are reared on cows, but not necessarily by their own mothers. This system has some of the benefits of dam rearing, with the added bonus of being more flexible for different farms. However, research has found that consumers perceive it as negatively as cow calf separation, as they pick up on the cow losing her calf rather than the benefits to the calves of being raised by cows and socialising in a group.
The farm has around 240 cows, calving in a tight block starting in mid March. For the first three months or so a portion of the herd are kept on off-lying and as foster mothers, rejoining the milking herd when the calves are weaned. This system has been in place for five years, and fulfils a dual purpose of reducing labour in calf rearing and using milk when seasonality penalties slash the value of B litres. It also enables the grazing platform at the farm with the parlour to be fully utilised for producing milk.
Cows are selected as foster mothers at the end of the previous lactation; those that have poor udder conformation or a dead quarter, any that might benefit from the system, and those that look like they could do with a break. Like the Danish farm, this farmer reported that older cows brought in to foster develop a second lease of life. The benefits aren’t just psychological; he tells me that cows with udder problems will often heal themselves in the foster system, and having this mob is a key aspect of managing the herd without antibiotics, and without having to run a high replacement rate.
The cows pre-selected as foster mothers are kept on the foster cow unit, the rest out winter on grass and silage bales. These cows calve outside and stay with their calves for 24 hours. The calves are then taken to the foster unit and kept inside with freshly calved foster cows. They aim to foster two calves on to a cow, with any heifers brought in (for example, ones with udder problems) able to foster one calf. Once suckling, foster cow and calves are turned out. They graze in groups of ten cows, with calves of the same age, and are put into bigger groups later in the season. The groups are closely observed to make sure that the calves are all healthy and being fed, and any small calves can be moved to a younger group. Any cows that don’t accept a calf are taken out of the foster system and back into the dairy herd.
Beef and bull calves are reared on whole milk until they have a passport, and then go on to rearers. This means that it is only the replacement heifers who are fostered, which reduces the number of cows needed in the foster group. It also utilises transition milk, which would have to be dumped from non-foster cows if all of the calves were fostered.
The herd longevity has been increased by suckling, and the farmer says that the system also helps the calves. Through the suckling system they lay down fat early, and this persists through their lives, so even when they are out wintering they retain their body condition better than cows reared conventionally.
The farm uses out wintering as the first step in their reseeding policy, followed by pigs, and the land is then re-sown with herbal leys including timothy, tall and meadow fescues, cocksfoot, red, white and sweet yellow clover, lucerne, vetch, chicory, plantain, sheep’s parsley, burnet, fennel, yarrow, and wild carrot. Cows also always have access to willow as a self selecting pain killer.
The farm routine has been set up to maximise efficiency of having lots of different blocks of land, and also to keep workload simple and reduce the labour need. While I was there last year’s heifers were loaded up (with the help of Doug and Becky the Huntaways) to be taken to a separate block of land. These fields were still dotted with volunteer daffodils from a crop planted eight years ago, and the field had once contained a mine shaft which had been filled. The trip was also an opportunity to learn more about Cornwall, and I was intrigued to find that some of the people there perceive themselves as Cornish and British, but certainly not English.
Unfortunately, while waiting for the second load of heifers to get on the trailer I went for a wander to find somewhere for a “rural wee” (an occupational hazard) and decided to cross over some farmyard manure to get into a field. What i thought was some surface muck was actually a pool of treacly slurry, and I ended up with both legs over my boots and up my calves in slurry.
With that it was time to drive up to Devon.
In Devon I visited Sam who owns Taw River Dairy, a split block of around a 100 Jersey and crossbred cows, who are managed in a full contact system. All calves stay on their mothers for up to four months, and are then weaned. They have started using QuietWean nose flaps, but do no practice any staggered separation. The farm doesn’t have a milk contract; all milk is processed and either sold as bottled milk or made into ice cream. Bull and beef calves are sold at weaning.
The farm is managed organically and is concentrate and antibiotic free. Cows are milked through a parlour which has been built onto an old lorry bed, and the milk tank is on a trailer so that it can be taken away to the processing site. The farm also keeps Belted Galloway beef cattle, sheep, pigs, and emus (or rheas? Didn’t get close enough to check). A large portion of the farm is kept wild and can be used for non-dairy animals, and they have planted thousands of trees and replanted hedgerows.
Cows and calves are kept in a close nursery field for a couple of days after calving, and then enter the milking herd and the cows are milked once a day. Through the summer they can walk a kilometre to be milked, and in the winter they are housed in a straw yard. During milking the calves have an area they can access under an electric fence, so they don’t have to go into the collecting yard with the cows.
Sam estimated that the calves drink 8-10 litres each per day, and the average yield of milk per cow that can be processed and sold is about 2,000 litres. This milk is sold to stockists across the South West, and the farm also attends events with their range of ice creams and sorbets.
I’m late arriving at the farm as the trip up from Cornwall takes some time (Cornwall is a lot longer than I ever imagined) so we end up driving over on the quad bike to let the cows into their evening paddock. As it is early in the season there are only a few spring calves, and the autumns have been weaned. The herd is therefore mostly cows, with the couple of calves loping behind them. Once in to the fresh mixed species sward they have their heads down and graze. Sam and I sit there and watch them for a while; no one ever gets too much of the sound of cows pulling up grass, and birds signing in the low evening sun. Sam tells me he needs to get better at recognising birdsong.
On the drive back the peace is somewhat shattered when the quad gets stuck. I jump off (both to avoid the mud spraying and to relieve the bike of my heft) and despite being as careful as I can, I am once again up to the top of my boots- but this time in yellow Devon clay. There is some careful work to release the tyres, and we are off again, two extremely interesting Nuffield visits completed.
Despite running different types of cow calf contact system, and one farm using the system as part of their value added enterprise while the other sells milk on a conventional contract, there were lots of similarities in management and ethos between the two farms. I was really impressed by their attitude to adaption and change, their focus on a simple system, and their belief in this type of calf rearing. A huge thank you to both for showing me their amazing plant and wildlife filled farms and wonderful cows.
Lessons Learnt
Always take your wellies, and never trust farmyard manure
Never describe a Cornish person as English
Foster calf systems might be a solution to labour shortages
Although there is still a real requirement for watching calves and stockmanship
This also applies to dam rearing, especially when moving cows between paddocks
Most infrastructure can be adapted to allow calves to stay with cows
There are options for those who don’t want to keep bull and beef calves until weaning
Cow calf contact can ease seasonality penalties
Calves can survive and thrive outdoors from a very young age
Not all cows fit a foster cow system
Cow calf contact can have psychological and physical benefits for cows, especially those suffering the bovine version of burnout
This approach has to be about flexibility, having an open mind, and constantly trying new things
