Especially in northern America, a long tradition has been to keep calves in individual outdoor hutches or to keep them in pens in a calf barn. It is an easy system to instruct employees and to observe calves. You see every time if a calf comes to drink milk, and calf health is easier to maintain when young animals are separated from each other. Due to the increase of automatic calf feeding systems, interest in group housing has also increased. Pressure from consumers to see calves raised in groups is also at play. How can we transition from single housing to group housing?

The future of a dairy farmer’s herd is dependent on the health and care calves receive as newborns. Ensuring a strong immune system buildup in the first few weeks of life is imperative to the animal’s longevity and overall herd success.

Six percent of Holstein bull calves in the U.S. never make it to the feedlot. That’s because their path is diverted to become veal.

Conventional wisdom has told us we should house dairy calves individually to prevent nose-to-nose contact and control spread of disease. Calf hutches have been viewed as the “gold standard” for calf raising.

When it comes to raising healthy, vigorous calves, Mohamed ElSheikh, DVM, feed department and calf manager at North Florida Holsteins in Bell, Florida, believes it all comes back to management.

Nathan Oakman from Deer Run Dairy in Adams, New York, has come up with a cost-effective solution for drying off and warming up baby calves in cold weather.