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.
Just like children letting off some steam on the playground, calves too could benefit from physical enrichment.
Mycoplasma bovis is common on dairies and contributes to respiratory disease, particularly in stressed calves.
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.
Compared to Holsteins, is calving time with crossbreds more difficult in terms of calf weight, stillbirth, gestation length, or dystocia?
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.
Effectively treating calves for scours could be as easy as feeding them something that virtually every dairy farm has on hand: colostrum.
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.
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.
Extra water – along with a possible electrolyte boost -- is never more important than in the heat of summer.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.