Latest News From Dairy Calves

With drought and production costs pushing the native beef population to a record low, beef-on-dairy has a huge opportunity to keep the feedlots and processors at full capacity.

Real-time monitoring of the environmental conditions for baby calves during transport would be highly beneficial to their comfort and health. Now, that task is becoming a possibility.

Acidification of milk or milk replacer is a common practice for some calf raisers, with some studies showing it improves weight gain and fecal scores in calves.

Detecting respiratory disease in calves early – when treatment is most effective – should start by examining the head and facial features, according to veterinarian Tiago Tomazi with Merck Animal Health.

Could probiotics improve early calf growth? Researchers think so.

Have you ever noticed that cows who calve during the fall and winter months tend to produce less colostrum than their herd mates who calved during the spring and summer? Here's why.

By using precision technologies such as automated milk feeders and pedometers combined with machine learning, dairy producers can detect illness earlier and make informed decisions about treatment.

When baby calves are transported from their home dairy to a separate rearing site, they need support in multiple ways.

It has been well-documented that feeding preweaned calves on a higher plane of nutrition improves calf health and performance. However, providing calves more nutrients may also promote wound healing.

That jolt from your morning java also could be a handy helper in stimulating struggling newborn calves. Caffeine could help calves before they receive colostrum, or at other times when calves appear dull and lethargic.

Just like children letting off some steam on the playground, calves too could benefit from physical enrichment.

In our quest for healthy, growthy, efficiently raised calves, have we lost some of the more fundamental elements of what makes calves tick?

University of Wisconsin animal welfare researcher Sarah Adcock addresses several considerations when using caustic paste to complete disbudding, as well as some drawbacks that could be improved upon.

After a typical birth the calf should breathe within 30 seconds of delivery, says Dr. Geof Smith, dairy technical services veterinarian for Zoetis. If it isn't, you need to intervene.

If you are experiencing a shortage in your straw supply, here are six bedding alternatives to consider.

Because newborn calves have very little body fat to help them stay warm, calf jackets can help them preserve energy, protect immunity and improve daily gain.

Compared to Holsteins, is calving time with crossbreds more difficult in terms of calf weight, stillbirth, gestation length, or dystocia?

Effectively treating calves for scours could be as easy as feeding them something that virtually every dairy farm has on hand: colostrum.

Monitoring calves’ body temperature is a critical metric to maintaining their health, and is especially valuable if temperature changes can be detected early.

While Lung Ultrasound is the cornerstone of any good Calf Herd Health Program, there are many other benefits to getting your herd vet in your calf barn on a regular basis.

Dairy farms are a hustling and bustling place. Last year, the Berning family in Illinois opened their dairy farm barn doors and offer Farm Camp for kids of all ages. Camp includes farm chores, scavenger hunts and more.

Neospora is the most commonly diagnosed cause of abortions in cattle both domestically and worldwide.

Feeding waste milk to calves captures high-quality nutrients and adds value to a product that otherwise would be discarded. But recent research sheds light on concerns about the practice.

Trace minerals are important to calves’ development, but these nutritional components can vary in source. It turns out some trace minerals are more palatable than others, resulting in differences in consumption.

Extra water – along with a possible electrolyte boost -- is never more important than in the heat of summer.

Providing assistance too early during stage II labor may result in an increased risk of metritis.

We now know the beneficial influence of feeding transition milk to calves. Is there a way to deliver that nutritional and immunological support and bypass the tedious process of harvesting and feeding transition milk?

The increased cost associated with raising heifers has made producers retool their thinking. Earlier management decisions are happening on dairies, with a more dialed-in, strategic breeding philosophy being adapted.

The sooner calves eat enough dry feed to sustain themselves, the better equipped they are to bridge the nutritional gap between the fixed liquid ration and a weaned diet of solely dry feeds.

Maternal colostrum is often considered nature’s “perfect food.” But does this “free” resource help calves achieve passive immunity as reliably as the guaranteed ingredients in a bag of colostrum replacer?

The new Calf Care & Quality Assurance program is ready to engage some arms and legs to carry out its mission. The second CCQA Instructor training is planned for June 2022.

Pardon the pun, but dealing with scours can be a real pain in the butt. It’s frustrating, it’s costly, and it can be downright messy at times.

Young animals often benefit from stemmy, lower quality forages. WIth regard to nutrition, this may seem counterintuitive but research indicates that's the case.

It’s important to stay abreast of new research that can influence dairy management practices. That’s what happened recently at Rosy-Lane Holsteins, Watertown, Wis.

With the cost of inflation impacting every corner of a dairy, the producer’s breeding strategy has been forced to become finetuned. More and more producers are keeping just enough replacements to fill the pipeline,.

In the quest to find alternatives to antibiotics to fight disease in dairy calves, essential oils are the subject of a growing body of calf health research.

A protocol overhaul helped the team at Singing Brook Farms, Imler, Pa., up their game in colostrum delivery. Two of their key managers share how they now seamlessly deliver high-quality colostrum to every newborn calf.

It is well-known that sub-acute ruminal acidosis (SARA) is a harmful and costly condition for adult dairy cows. But when calves get SARA, is it bad news for them, too? A Canadian researcher’s conclusion: maybe not.

Providing free choice water to newborn calves has been shown to deliver a wide array of benefits in terms of calf health and performance. But it’s also a huge challenge for some farms in the winter.

Housing calves with at least one companion can improve animal welfare, calf growth, and consumer perception. But there are challenges, too.

During the recent Academy of Veterinary Consultants conference, Dan Altena, DVM, Valley Veterinarians Inc., offered some take-home points to help veterinarians with crossbred calves in the feedyard.

The dairy, beef, and veal sectors are collaborating to form a first-of-its-kind program to promote the health and welfare of calves throughout the supply chain.

Habits formed early in life – whether good or bad – often carry through to adulthood. Like little children, calves, too, need to be trained on positive behaviors, including the way they eat.

More and more farms have made the switch from feeding calves individually to group autofed systems. However, disease detection in group-housed calves remains a challenge. Could autofeeders help detect sick calves?

Dairy farmers and calf raisers have tried to adapt calves to solid calf starter as soon as possible to save money. If this is done poorly, calf raising costs can soar due to increased levels of sickness and even death.

As one of the top scourges to calf raisers, cryptosporidium is an ever-present challenge that rarely takes a holiday.

Have you ever had a cow come down with a disease while she was pregnant? Probably so. But does that illness impact the calf? Maybe not.

Factors for consideration include colostrum management, group composition and dynamics, bedding and space, nutritional management, early disease detection and the need for "real life" observations.

It appears that making sure dry cows are comfortable and encouraged to rest influences the survival of their newborns.

Wintry weather demands extra attention for preweaned calves, and that includes the temperature of their liquid feedings.