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Calf Care Around the World: Paul Lindeque - South Africa to USA

Calf Care Around the World: Paul Lindeque - South Africa to USA

Over the next few weeks, we will be taking a tour of calf rearing facilities around the world! There is no one size fits all approach to calf raising and it will be a lot of fun to see the differences in operations across different geographies. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to subscribe to our Newsletter you don’t miss out on this exciting blog series!

We will start our tour this week in Central Texas, USA at Beattie Cattle.  Paul and Tina Lindeque is the owners and operators of the facility.  Paul grew up on a diversified ranch in South Africa where they raised sheep, cattle and grow a variety of  crops. Paul spent some time serving in the military and then attended college.  After college he had the opportunity to be an agriculture exchange student in the USA.  During that time, he worked on a dairy farm in Tulare, CA and was able to experience all aspects of cow care.  It was great exposure to the industry and sparked an interest for his future career. 

In 1998 Paul and Tina moved to the United States and have been working in the calf raising industry ever since.  In 2002 Paul began working with Land O’Lakes as a calf consultant, and he is still doing calf consulting today. One day he was visiting with one of his more seasoned customers, an 83-year-old farmer, who gave him an idea/ challenge.  This gentleman said to Paul, “Salespeople always have great ideas because they don’t raise their own cattle.”

Paul took that statement to heart, he said, “Mr. Dennis within 5 years I will prove you wrong.” And in 2011 he started his own calf ranch.

Paul says he often laughs about this, but truly it has been his motivation to practice what he preaches. Paul was kind enough to spend some time with me and share a few things about his operation and how they have come to where they are today.

 

Q: Paul, please tell us a little bit about the type of calves you raise?

A: Beattie Cattle is mostly a custom feeding operation focusing on dairy heifers. We raise them for the first 5 months of life. The breeds we feed are Holstein, Jersey, Holstein/Jersey cross, and some Angus/dairy cross calves that will be raised for beef.  We take a middle of the road approach for our feeding program that will work for all breeds and all ages. On average we are feeding about 3,000 wet calves at any one time.

 

Q: How did you decide upon settling in Texas?

A: At first Texas was an opportunity for me to be central in the country, and close to a large airport as I worked as a calf consultant. But what really keep me here is the people and the environment  we can raise our kids in.

 

Q: What aspect of calf raising does your operation excel at?

A: I feel that we do a really good job sending back an animal with a properly functioning rumen that can easily adapt to all the different dairy operations we custom raise for. 

 

Q: How do you feel your feeding program influences how the rumen develops and prepares these calves to return and adapt to each different dairy farm?

A: Well, two things. First, we don’t over feed milk early on, we let them mature on their own time instead. We use a quality, all milk replacer  that adds stability to the milk program. Our calf grain is consistent all the way from day one to five months of age when the calves head back to their original farms. We are in an area where a lot of our heifers go back on pasture, and not many of them go into lots.  Our grain mix is high in digestible fiber and highly palatable.  We get our feed from Hi-Pro that’s conveniently located in town. I like the consistency and quality of ingredients they use which complement our milk program.

Secondly, we promote gut health and development by feeding Surveillance all the way through the milk feeding phase, until 65 days of age at weaning. I feel that the transition at weaning is relatively easy at my facility.  

 

Q: What feeding rate of Surveillance have you found to be most successful for you?

A: Most of the time we just feed it at the preventative level of 3ml/feeding.  In times of disease challenge, we might bump it up to 5 ml/feeding, but we rarely have to do that anymore. My feeding program for winter and summer is the same, however, if we know a big storm is coming, we will bump up the solids levels a few days before and continue to feed the higher rate until two days after the weather event. In those cases, the amount of Surveillance is also automatically increased with the increase of milk solids.

 

Q: What some of the biggest challenges on your operation, and what steps do you take to overcome them?

A: I I think like most places, our biggest challenge is consistency that is directly related to labor.  It doesn’t matter how good of a calf rearing program you have, if you can’t keep consistent labor, it’s tough to excel.

It seems like we always have enough labor to get the basics done, but sometimes we have challenges  and having extra, skilled  labor for  extra things like  IV’s or drenching (sick calves with 20 ml of Surveillance), are a big help.
A couple of guest worker programs has really helped us keep consistent help. 

 

Q: What other areas of management, other than labor, do you strive for consistency?

A: Consistency in feed, daily schedules and environment. Well, something to say about consistency.  I recently changed my vaccine schedule a couple of weeks ago.  Every day since, my workers complained about the calves.   It’s not that the calves are actually doing horrible, it’s just that the workers don’t like the change.  It’s important to ensure that the calf raisers  have peace of mind that your program is working for you, and that it is also practical enough for them to implement and that they buy into it.  That’s where it all starts and stops. At the end of the day, make sure to be communicating with the guys on the ground, doing the work. They hold the golden keys in their pockets.

 

Thanks again Paul for sharing so much with us about Beattie Cattle!  

 

Written by: Mariah Gull, M.S.


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