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.
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?
Simply producing a black calf if not enough if the dairy industry wants to make permanent inroads into successful crossbreeding.
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.
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.
As one of the top scourges to calf raisers, cryptosporidium is an ever-present challenge that rarely takes a holiday.
Calves with navel infections will present wet or pus ridden navel cords and their navel areas will be swollen, hard, and painful to the touch.
Wintry weather demands extra attention for preweaned calves, and that includes the temperature of their liquid feedings.
When the mercury drops, preweaned calves expend more energy to maintain their body temperature. They often need added nutrients to keep them healthy and growing through frigid conditions.
While every dairy farmer has a unique affection for their dairy calves, the next great generation of his or her milking herd, it’s not a good idea to kiss them or allow farm visitors to smooch away.
Want to keep disease out of your calf barn? If so, it might be prudent to take a page from the biosecurity measures of our pig-and-poultry-raising kin, and set up a “Danish entry.”
As awareness of animal welfare grows, new methods of detecting and evaluating stress and pain in calves are being evaluated. Researchers are exploring heart rate variability as an accurate, non-invasive assessment tool.
They’re a danger to milk cows, to be sure. But mycotoxins in feedstuffs also can be damaging to the health and development of calves and heifers.
A well-planned calving pen gives your clients the opportunity to provide the best treatment for both the cow and the calf. But what goes in to creating the ideal pen?
Even healthy calves can suffer dehydration in extremely hot weather.
If you sell your bull calves shortly after birth, it’s tempting to send them down the road with no colostrum. But those animals will be far better served if you take the time to get them the colostrum they need.
By vaccinating cows and first-calf heifers in late gestation, producers can reduce the risk of neonatal calf scours in the period just after birth.
As the thermometer climbs, farmers are eager to make sure their fans and sprinklers are running to keep lactating and dry cows cool. But just like adult cows, calves are also challenged by hot weather.
Prepackaged colostrum replacers are an easy way to quickly feed colostrum to a newborn calf. However, while they do come with many benefits, there are a few potential negative aspects of utilizing this nutritional tool.
Researchers are exploring whether cattle would benefit from pain management associated with calving.
When consumers think about dairy farming, one of their greatest concerns are the calves. That can be a good thing because farmers have a great story to tell. But it also may require some flexing of rearing practices.
Using pain mitigation techniques when disbudding or dehorning is now the standard of care for U.S. cattle veterinary and quality assurance organizations.
The U.S. calf-raising sector now has a program to help ensure optimal calf health and welfare via the Calf Care & Quality Assurance (CCQA) program.
When used correctly, ionophores can be highly effective in preventing scours caused by coccidia in pre- and post-weaned dairy calves.
When dairy calves’ transition to weaning goes awry, so, too, can their health and productivity.
Calves that have incurred traumatic births are often lethargic, clumsy and have little interest in nursing. These babies may benefit from a simple procedure called the “Madigan Squeeze Technique.”
Dairy calves can transmit any number of diseases to their human handlers or those who pet them.
An esophageal tube feeder can be a lifeline for young calves, delivering colostrum, milk or electrolytes when they are unable to suckle a bottle. But incorrect use of these feeders can be dangerous or even deadly.
A high level of crude protein helps support development of the gastrointestinal system, especially important as calves go through the weaning process.
Whether or not to feed hay to preweaned dairy calves is a longstanding debate, without an absolute answer.