Clever calf club finds M bovis workaround
When Mycoplasma bovis threatens to destroy your cherished rural tradition, you find a way around it.
A small rural Waikato school has done exactly that, with parents at Whitikahu School, near Hamilton, creating an on-farm calf club to keep the tradition alive.
It comes after the Ministry for Primary Industries recommended that rural schools cancel calf clubs due to concerns the animals could catch or spread M bovis.
Instead of bringing their pet calves to school for judging, a judge travels around each individual farm to inspect each calf. The school then holds a prizegiving where photos of each placegetter and their calves are shown.
Gordonton dairy farmers Annabelle and Steven Scherer are two of the parents behind the concept.
‘‘My kids have that passion, and I didn’t want to see that passion die away. This was an opportunity for kids to still rear their calves and still do everything they would for calf club. We just thought, why disadvantage the kids?’’ Annabelle says.
She also appreciates why MPI recommended that calf club days be cancelled, with M bovis a huge concern for the industry.
Annabelle and Steven have four children – 11-year-old Charlie, 9-year-old Gabrielle, 5-year-old Henry and 2-yearold Archer. It is Henry’s first chance to experience rearing calves, while Charlie and Gabrielle are old hands.
‘‘They are really into it,’’ Scherer says.
‘‘We’re really hoping it’s going to work, because I’ve got calf-crazy kids that were really going to be upset if we said, ‘No, sorry – there’s no calf club’.’’
Charlie has already picked out the calf he wants to rear, a friendly 2-weekold holstein-friesian called Fleur. It is the daughter of one of his former calf club calves, and he will begin training it once it gets older.
‘‘When she’s older, I’ll start leading it,’’ he says.
Gabrielle says she enjoys calf club because she gets to spend so much time with the calves. ‘‘I get to rear the animal all by myself.’’
Scherer approached potential judges, who said they were happy to do it.
Dairy farmer Vaughan Clarke’s two children attend Whitikahu School with Scherer’s. Calf clubs bring the community together, he reckons. ‘‘You learn skills along the way, and it’s potentially how children get into farming.’’
They plan to outline the concept in a newsletter for all parents at the school, with calving under way on Waikato
dairy farms, and hope to get at least 20 to 30 calves entered this year. Scherer says the idea also has the full backing of the school.
Nor is it too late for other rural Waikato schools to adopt the concept. They hope southern dairying regions will pick up on the concept and adopt it, with calving yet to begin.
‘‘I mentioned it to a friend down at Okoroire, ¯ and they only have a little school and would only get 10 calves. They didn’t even think of doing something like this,’’ Annabelle Scherer says.
‘‘I think if we get it up and running, these little rural schools could do this.’’
Depending on entry numbers, the children would be divided into juniors, intermediates and seniors. The judge will visit the farm and score the children on leading, rearing and dairy type.
A makeshift ring can be created easily on a farm for the child to lead the calf around and for the judge to score the performance. Scoring the child for their rearing ability could be trickier, but Clarke is confident it can be achieved if the judge takes plenty of notes. ‘‘It’s going to make the judges earn their money,’’ he says.
They expect the contest to run on a similar timetable as traditional calf clubs in October. That will give children plenty of time to choose, rear and train their calves.
‘‘My kids have that passion, and I didn’t want to see that passion die away. This was an opportunity for kids to still rear their calves and still do everything they would for calf club.’’
Dairy farmer Annabelle Scherer