Consistency Delivers Exceptional Calf Performance at Blaiket Mains Farm

At Blaiket Mains Farm, near Crocketford in Dumfries and Galloway, consistency is the foundation of exceptional calf performance. Rodger and Lindsay Callander manage an impressive 900-cow Holstein herd, comprising 600 spring block-calving cows and 300 autumn block-calving cows. Their objective is clear: to rear healthy, productive replacements that calve for the first time at 24 months of age, ensuring the next generation of cows enters the milking herd efficiently and performs to its full genetic potential.

Leading the calf rearing operation is Hannah McQuaker, who has been responsible for the farm’s calves for the past five years. Her attention to detail, combined with carefully designed feeding protocols and excellent stockmanship, has helped achieve outstanding calf health, performance, and survival rates.

Building Strong Calf Performance from Birth

Every calf begins life with a carefully managed colostrum programme. Newborn calves receive 4 litres of high-quality colostrum as soon as possible after birth. Colostrum quality is measured using a Brix refractometer, with anything above 22% Brix reserved for dairy replacement heifer calves, while colostrum below this threshold is fed to the farm’s beef calves. This careful management ensures replacement heifers receive the highest quality passive immunity at the most critical stage of life.

For the first seven days, calves then receive Transformula at a rate of 150g per litre, fed twice daily with 2.5 litres offered morning and evening. This early feeding strategy is designed to support the calves developing immune system while helping establish a healthy gut microbiome during the calf’s most vulnerable stage of life.

The Callanders have chosen to use Transformula and Shine Original continuously for the past five years as part of a structured nutritional programme. Hannah says the products have become an integral part of the farm’s calf rearing system because of the consistency they deliver and the health benefits they have observed.

After seven days, calves transition onto Shine Original, also mixed at 150g per litre. Calves receive 3 litres twice daily through a teat feeder via a Holm & Laue milk taxi or 6 litres per day via the farm’s Holm & Laue automatic calf feeder, remaining on milk until approximately 80 days of age.

The transition from Transformula onto Shine Original has been carefully planned. While Transformula supports immunity and early gut development, Shine Original is used to encourage strong dry feed intakes, helping stimulate production of the volatile fatty acids needed for rumen villi development. This allows calves to make a smooth transition through weaning without experiencing the post-weaning growth checks that can often slow future performance.

Precision Feeding Creates Consistency

Only replacement heifer calves are reared on the automatic feeder, allowing the system to operate efficiently without becoming overcrowded. The farm rears approximately 150 dairy replacement heifers from the spring-calving herd and around 90 from the autumn block each year. The remaining calves are beef animals, including Angus, British Blue, Hereford and Wagyu crosses, with around 450 beef calves in the spring and approximately 180 in the autumn.

The farm operates the automatic feeder at its designed capacity, with 30 calves allocated to each feeder station. Hannah says the system has performed exceptionally well, providing reliable and consistent feeding while fitting seamlessly into the farm’s calf rearing programme.

Around 20 surplus calves are fed using teat feeders supplied by an H&L Milk Taxi. The Milk Taxi accurately weighs the required quantity of milk powder for the exact volume of water, ensuring every feed is mixed consistently. Both the Milk Taxi and the automatic feeder are meticulously cleaned twice daily, maintaining excellent hygiene standards and supporting optimum calf performance.

Weaning is carried out gradually by reducing milk allocation by 0.5 litres every other day, encouraging a smooth transition onto solid feed.

Encouraging Early Feed Intake

Alongside milk, calves receive an 18% crude protein molassed calf blend. Two weeks prior to weaning, this is gradually mixed alongside a 17% crude protein calf rearer, before calves transition fully onto the rearer ration. The rearer cake is fed alongside straw, encouraging rumen development and preparing calves for life after milk.

Hannah notes that both Transformula and Shine Original are extremely easy to mix, even using cooler water, producing an excellent feed-out quality. Just as importantly, calves find the milk highly palatable, consistently finishing every feed offered.

Shine Original is formulated using low-heat skim milk and buttermilk, ingredients that are digested in much the same way as whole cow’s milk. The inclusion of buttermilk also provides naturally occurring milk bioactives and beneficial bacteria that help support gut health, contributing to good digestion and reducing the likelihood of digestive upsets during the milk-feeding period.

Outstanding Calf Health and Performance

Since introducing Transformula in 2019, Blaiket Mains Farm has seen a dramatic improvement in calf health.

Cryptosporidiosis had previously been a challenge, but today scour during the first week of life is minimal. Supporting calves during this period is particularly important, as newborn calves have an immature immune system and rely heavily on the passive immunity transferred through colostrum. Nutritional support during this early stage helps strengthen the calf while its own immune system continues to develop.

The results speak for themselves.

From around 600 spring-born calves, Hannah lost just 11 calves. Remarkably, only four of these losses were associated with scour. The remaining losses were due to unrelated, unavoidable issues, including one calf with meningitis, two suffering seizures and one calf born blind. With a calf mortality rate of only 1.8%, the farm consistently outperforms UK industry benchmarks, achieving a figure well below the target of under 3% and the national dairy average of approximately 6%.

For a unit of this size, these figures demonstrate the effectiveness of a calf rearing programme built on consistency, hygiene, careful nutrition and close attention to detail.

The long-term value of investing in calf nutrition is also supported by independent research. A recent study conducted at Harper Adams University found that calves receiving 10 days of Transformula transition milk replacer before moving onto a skim-based calf milk replacer went on to produce an additional 947 litres of milk during their first lactation, together with 85kg more combined butterfat and protein, compared with calves that received colostrum before moving directly onto the same skim-based milk replacer. The findings reinforce the importance of nutritional management during the first days of life and the lasting impact it can have on future dairy performance.

At Blaiket Mains Farm, every stage of calf management has been designed to give calves the very best possible start. Through meticulous husbandry, precise feeding management and a nutritional programme that focuses on immunity, gut development and rumen function, Rodger, Lindsay and Hannah are consistently producing healthy calves that develop into productive youngstock, helping secure the long-term success of the herd.