As seen in the Country Wide
South Island farmers are discovering that rearing calves on high nutritional fibre enables their calves to grow faster and move onto grass quicker with minimal or no weaning check.
Calf rearing specialists Fiber Fresh Feeds Limited (in receivership, administrators appointed) appointed South Island sales manager Ryan Gregorash, based in Ashburton, this year.
He says a farmer who used the Fiber Fresh calf rearing system for the first time to rear his autumn calves and was absolutely amazed at the results.
“His calves are now bigger than the spring calves that the dairy farmer who supplied him the calves reared six months earlier and the animals came from the same herd,” Gregorash says.
“The dairy farmer was so impressed that he has decided to rear his own calves on High Nutritional Fiber as well.”
Research in 2008 showed calves reared on Fiber Fresh High Nutritional Fiber developed a bigger and more robust rumen and their papillae development was markedly better than that of conventionally reared calves.
