Calf Care Around the World: Andrew Furzeland - UK to New Zealand

This week we will be visiting New Zealand! Andrew Furzeland shares what it is like to raise Wagyu Dairy Cross Calves.

Andrew is originally from the United Kingdom. He had been involved in dairy for a number of years, and intensively ran a 100-cow herd. The herd was fed on a total mixed ration (TMR) and calved year-round. Andrew spent some time in New Zealand and grew to love it.

He felt there was an opportunity to start raising calves there. So, on the side from his regular job, he began raising calves. He started with 60 and grew as new opportunities and contracts became available.

Andrew says, “It’s like telling a story. At first, we had to learn from others. Now using our own information and background we quietly grew from 60 to 3,000 head per year."

Andrew’s wife, Rebecca, is originally from New Zealand. She and their two children, Tilly, and Freddie, can be found working alongside Andrew on the calf ranch.

Q: Tell us about the calves you raise.

A: The Wagyu beef calves arrive on our rearing farm at an early age, approximately 7-10 days old. Breeders use a Wagyu straw into a Friesian Cross Cow. We rear the calves through weaning. They leave us at 100 kg (220 lbs.) to go to another farm to finish.  The target is to finish the cattle by 30 months of age.  It’s all on a grass-fed system. We follow antibiotic and hormone free protocols with animal welfare at the forefront of our decision making. There is only up to 5% of the diet grain fed. That’s generally at the calf stage.  After 100 kg the animal is solely dependent on grass. And then it’s the farmer’s ability to marble that meat into a fine cut. The meat is sold mostly into the United States. 

The first 2-3 weeks we focus on milk feeding. We want to give them the best start, so we focus on meeting their nutrient requirements to facilitate optimal growth at critical stages of development. Our goal is to develop the rumen which sets the calf up for optimal growth to meet market expectations.

Q: What aspect of calf raising do you feel is most impactful on your calf rearing farm?

A: The word consistency is important in raising calves.Through everything we do we strive toward consistency. In recent years there have been a number of health problems with calves throughout New Zealand, such as various bacterial issues like Rotavirus, and Crypto. A lot of those issues come to the calf through cow’s milk, which is the most natural and best thing you can feed. We need to ensure that what we feed the calves is not going to create any problems as this will go against what we are trying to achieve. Working off consistency we let the calves tell us from their performance if we are on the right track or not.

Q: What is the weaning process like on your farm?

A: The calf is very dependent on liquid nutrition for the first 21 days of life. As a rearer we have to decide when that calf is ready to start going on to meal and to take in roughage. We begin to taper back the milk as calves show more interest in the meal. Once they hit a meal intake of a minimum of 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) per head per day, along with sufficient pasture consumption, then the calves are ready to be weaned off milk. Other dependent factors upon weaning also include age, weight, and body condition of the animal.

Here in New Zealand, we are very focused on growing grass. Grass is the cheapest and the best feed for our animals. Everything else is by-products that we purchase. Milk powder and meal are by-products, but we still need them. Milk is king, and then grass is king. As the rearers of our calves, we have got to make informed decisions as to when is the right time to be weaned off milk, allowing sufficient meal and grass intake and finally just grass as the main form of nutrition.

Q: What are your greatest health challenges, and what do you do to overcome them.

A: We see minor health challenges but we try to be on our game and maintain attention to detail. Our facility is built to give them the best start in life, a clean healthy environment that matches the calves needs. Outside of that, correct nutrition is key. If we don’t feed more than just maintenance, we will potentially have problems with the calves. In early days we did see some challenges. Nothing serious, but electrolyte therapy and close monitoring were required.  What we found overtime is that we were under feeding our calves nutritionally. Over the last 3-4 years we almost doubled our nutrition to where we were 12 years ago, and morbidity and mortality and general health is significantly better.  It’s more about what the breeder has done, adequate colostrum, navel care, and cleanliness, and then optimum nutrition.Yes, we do have some health issues, but it is minimal. It’s about making sure these animals have correct nutrition from day 1. Without good nutrition the calf’s immune system is compromised and can’t respond when faced with a challenge.

Q:  What is your calf housing like?

A: We have group housing, there are 16 calves per pen. They are on compartment milk feeders, this way we monitor each calf’s milk intake and get a gauge on how they are performing, and if they may be facing a health challenge.

Q: What are your growth goals?

A: If you work backwards, what is the future of the animal or what are you trying to achieve? If you know the goal and the destiny of that animal, you then have to go backwards and look at what inputs are required for the animal to achieve that goal. If we just want to work on averages, then we will work with averages later in life. If we want it to hit a certain weight at 30 months of age, we need to think about what we need to do to achieve that. 

For example, in the early days we were averaging 0.5 kg average daily growth rate on the Wagyu with the recommended nutrition at that time. Today with the lifting that we have done, which comes with a higher cost, we are now able to meet the expectations of the weight gain performance by feeding more milk solids. Then it’s figuring out where to draw the line.You can put everything into your calves, and then some, but ultimately it comes back to delivering the correct nutrition without spending extra dollars on the bells and whistles that don’t generate any reward. It’s critical  to understand the destiny of the animal and work backwards from there to allow us to formulate what we are trying to achieve and the costs around that.

As calf rearers, probably worldwide, there is a short vision, and we are focused on cost and the cheapest way to rear a calf. Instead, we need to understand we have to use certain products to get a return on the animal and a return on our investment. It’s not about all the bells and whistles, it’s all about doing the little things right. Over the years as we have quietly made incremental changes we have seen considerable improvements in our calves which is very rewarding.  

Thank you, Andrew, for sharing all about raising Wagyu beef with us!  Congratulations on the growth and improvements you have made on your farm over the years!

Written by: Mariah Gull, M.S.