Dairy Calves - News & Insights
Stay updated on the latest dairy calf management strategies. Explore expert advice on colostrum management, calf nutrition, disease prevention, and the beef-on-dairy trend to ensure a healthy, productive future for your herd.
From colostrum management to avoiding stacked stress, these priorities can help calves develop the reserves to withstand routine management challenges and disease pressure.
Winter calf care goes beyond adding a layer. Is your calf program ready for what happens when temperatures drop?
After years advising dairy farms, Bethany Dado-Senn brought her calf science expertise to her family’s Wisconsin dairy and built a new career at home.
There is a cycle of incomplete calf health records and limited veterinary feedback. Breaking it requires practical recordkeeping systems and a commitment to turning data into management decisions.
Early social contact may help calves learn, adapt to stress and develop healthy behaviors. Successful pair housing depends on appropriate facilities, feeding and calf management.
Merck Animal Health has expanded SenseHub® Dairy Youngstock monitoring to bucket-fed, preweaned calves, broadening the types of dairy operations that can use automated behavioral monitoring.
A Cornell field study examined wound healing, pain sensitivity and growth following two approaches to cautery disbudding.
Breed-specific thresholds offer a potential tool for herd-level monitoring of omphalitis, but researchers caution that a normal-sized navel does not rule out disease.
New resistance-to-diarrhea and resistance-to-respiratory-disease PTAs give producers another tool for long-term calf health selection.
Some heifers make it to the milking herd, while others fall out along the way. Herd records can help pinpoint where those losses are happening and what may be behind them.
From fetal programming to fitness checks, every step before loading helps determine how calves perform after they leave the dairy.
Heat stress during the dry period doesn’t stop with the dam. It can influence daughters, granddaughters and even great-granddaughters.
Researchers at Penn State are developing the CalfHealth System, an AI-powered platform that combines behavior monitoring, precision livestock technologies and veterinary diagnostics to identify calves at risk for bovine respiratory disease before obvious clinical signs appear.
Research suggests calves that recover from scours may still carry a production disadvantage years after the ailment has been treated.
A new study examining diary calf cognition found calves fed more milk were more likely to prioritize play than food-seeking behavior.
Discover how Dr. Jody Kull takes dairy protocols in stagnant binders and creates fluid risk-management tools that improve calf care, transition health, and team communication.
Beef-on-dairy calves are showing fewer scours cases and repeat treatments than Holsteins, adding another layer to their value on dairy farms.
Ammonia can build in calf hutches and affect growth, but small changes in bedding and daily management can help keep levels in check.
Many calves develop pneumonia days before showing symptoms. Lung ultrasounds are helping veterinarians detect the hidden disease earlier.
Not all colostrum is equal, but simple on-farm tools can help you determine the best quality.
When tracked across calves and over time, serum total protein can provide insights into calf health, management consistency and future performance.
When it comes to colostrum, more isn’t always better.
Dr. Adam Beard shares new research evaluating short-term contact between cows and calves and its impact on early calf health and growth.
Virtually all calf starter grain formulations in the U.S. currently lean on soybean meal as their main protein source. But researchers at Kansas State University are looking at an interesting alternative – distillers grain.
Effective scours treatment depends on correcting dehydration and acidosis early. Here, Dr. Geoffrey Smith reviews physiology-based oral and IV fluid therapy strategies.
Early recognition and intervention can determine whether compromised calves recover or fall behind.
Why inconsistency in daily management quietly undermines calf health and how veterinarians can help stabilize outcomes before disease appears.