@conference {3672,
	title = {BRIEF COMMUNICATION: Do different grazing strategies affect pre-weaning calf growth rates?},
	booktitle = {Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production},
	volume = {76},
	year = {2016},
	month = {07/2016},
	pages = {119-121},
	address = {Adelaide},
	abstract = {Rearing replacement heifer calves is a labour-intensive
and expensive component of dairy systems (Drackley
2008). Large numbers of replacement heifers are not
meeting target live weights in New Zealand (McNaughton
\& Lopdell 2012) which has implications for future milk
production, fertility and subsequent longevity in the herd
(Van Amburgh \& Tikofsky 2001).
This paper reports results from the second year of a
long-term experiment being conducted at Massey University
that examines the impact of colostral status and liveweight
gain of heifer calves fed different diets on subsequent milk
production, fertility and longevity in the herd. Previous
work (Cardoso et al. 2015) demonstrated no difference in
pre-weaning liveweight gain of calves fed different levels
of milk. The calves in that study ate surprisingly little meal.
It was surmised that the exposure to frequent shifts onto
fresh pasture stimulated intake of pasture, and removed
the advantage of feeding calves higher levels of milk and
supplementation with meal. Anecdotally, many calves
when removed from rearing sheds to pasture are kept on the
same paddocks as they are not a high priority for pasture
allocation. Therefore, the aim of this experiment was
further collection of colostral and Brix data as described by
Coleman et al. (2015), and to compare pre-weaning growth
rates of calves that are continually offered fresh pasture to
those that are set stocked.},
	issn = {1176-5283},
	author = {Back PJ and Hickson RE and van Bouwel K and de Cock H and Verdurmen J and Sneddon NW and Laven RA}
}
