After one and a half seasons with AgriVantage and Sprayfo milk replacers, Sheep and Beef Farmers Nolan and Rochelle Jennings are big advocates of both brands. Based on their positive experience with the lamb milk replacer, they have switched to Sprayfo calf milk replacer this year too.
The Jennings are located at Otara in southern Southland. They rear 400 - 500 calves annually, mainly Friesian bulls. They also lamb 1,300 ewes and 250 hoggets, picking up all triplet and quad lambs at birth. They’ve been rearing animals for about 25 years.
Rearing lambs with AgriVantage
Pre-Sprayfo Rochelle was rearing approximately 300 orphan lambs on cow’s colostrum and cow’s milk.
“With cow’s milk, we had a lot of bloat issues and were constantly having to monitor the lambs. We would easily lose 10-12 in a season” says Rochelle.
Last year they invested in a Lely automatic feeder. Based on recommendations from other farmers, they also bought Sprayfo Primo Lamb milk replacer.
“Ad lib feeding the lambs with Sprayfo made a huge difference to our operation” Rochelle continues. “The lambs on Sprayfo outdid the lambs on cow’s milk by far.
This season, all the lambs they have picked up (about 230) were given Launchpad18 colostrum too. Rochelle says the Launchpad18 was easy to use but, more importantly, it was good to know exactly what the lambs were getting.
“The difference in animal health on this system compared to the old cow’s milk one has been like day and night” continues Rochelle. “There’s less bloat, less joint ill.
“We’ve also doubled our rearing operation to 650 lambs and lost maybe half a dozen in total.”
The lamb sheds are disinfected with AgriVantage’s Stalosan F. “We trialed Stalosan last year” says Rochelle. “This year we have been a lot more vigorous, spreading it twice weekly. We have no ammonia smell in the sheds and no trouble with bacteria. It’s another great product.”
The Jennings have trialed Sprayfo Alpha as a starter with just 40 of their late hogget lambs (finishing them on Primo). It’s likely they will use this feeding regime across the board next season.
Rearing calves with AgriVantage
Nolan explains that their key objective with the calves is to reach 100kg as quickly as possible, ready for sale. In the past he used a traditional curding milk replacer but, based on the success of their new lamb rearing system, was persuaded to switch to Sprayfo CMR.
About half of the calves have been reared on cow’s milk and transitioned to Sprayfo Blue whey-based CMR at about 3-4 weeks old, depending on milk supply. The rest were started on Sprayfo Delta (curding, high energy) milk replacer TAD for the first 2-3 weeks and then transitioned to OAD feeding with Sprayfo Blue whey-based milk replacer. This was based on the recommendation of AgriVantage South Island Business Manager Cheryl Farrar.
Nolan stresses the need for a high fat feed in the first few weeks, due to the cold Southland climate. “We need the calves to get a bit of fat on them in the first 2-3 weeks so Delta or whole milk is best, while Sprayfo Blue is ideal for getting the rumen going after that. The transition from Sprayfo Delta to Blue was seamless too.
“The calves look fantastic” says Nolan. “In fact, as good as they ever have, and we have experienced one of our worst seasons weather-wise. Out of 400, we might have lost two calves. In the past we’d lose at least six.”
The calves are weaned at 80kg.
“We’ve already weaned quite a few” Nolan continues, “and haven’t seen any signs of the usual weaning ‘growth check’, they don’t look back. I can see how rumen development has been improved.”
Being whey-based, Sprayfo Blue is ideal as a finisher for calves as it is very easily digested. Where a whole milk takes 2-3 times longer to digest (so the animal feels fuller for longer), the whey protein passes rapidly into the small intestine and is digested within a few hours. This encourages earlier concentrate intake into the rumen.
Because Sprayfo is imported, the product cannot contain a coccidiostat. Nolan shrugs that off, saying “we just mixed a coccidiostat into the milk replacer until the calves were eating enough meal.”
Why AgriVantage?
“I am quite happy to back AgriVantage products because we can see results” concludes Nolan. “We see lots of people trying to rear their animals on the cheap and wanting the best outcomes. We use high quality products and the best system we can, and we rear fantastic animals.
“I totally recommend AgriVantage too. The service is excellent. Cheryl is so helpful to us and she’s a wealth of knowledge – you simply don’t get people as willing to help as she is.
“We will definitely use Sprayfo, Stalosan F and Launchpad18 again next year.”
Choose AgriVantage products
Sprayfo Delta Energised Calf Milk
Sprayfo Blue Premium Calf Milk Replacer
Sprayfo Alpha Lamb
Sprayfo Primo Lamb
Launchpad18 Colostrum Powder
