There has been a lot written about how feeding more milk replacer will improve the immune system and health of baby calves. Several laboratories have compared feeding calves conventional milk replacers at approximately 1 pound of solids daily to higher levels of nutrition. Higher levels of nutrition were frequently milk replacers that are approximately 28 percent protein fed at approximately 2 pounds of solids daily.

In my dairy farm travels, I find that dairymen have become very well-versed in their lactating herd’s nutrition awareness and many times can even tell me their diet’s estimate of undegraded intake protein. Herds today are very well fed. They have to be fed right to be profitable. However, I find it interesting that when I walk around the side of the barn and pass by the calf hutches, many times the calves seem thin to me. This is regardless of the feed company or nutrition consultant used.

If there is a “right” way and a “wrong” way to start raising calves, Katie Grinstead of Vir-Clar Dairy arguably did it the “best” way.

Better-managed calf barns are beginning to rival outdoor hutches – the long-held gold standard to calf housing. Dr. Ken Nordlund explained that there are three reasons why interest in calf barns is growing: first, to avoid dealing with inclement weather; second, automatic calf feeders are not feasible for hutches; and third, emerging data shows properly ventilated calf barns are providing health results equivalent to hutches.

Two years – it sounds like a lot of time. But when it comes to raising heifers, two years is a small window of opportunity to do all the little things right. In this roundtable, four calf and heifer raisers share their approaches to nutrition, disease management, reproduction, genetics and labor. They also provide insights on the lessons that have shaped their programs, from colostrum to calving, for supporting overall calf and heifer wellness.

Dehorning cattle has become a standard practice in modern dairy operations to prevent injury to humans and animals alike. Dehorning is one of the sometimes unpleasant tasks that must be performed on the average dairy farm. But what if you could eliminate this task simply by choosing the “right” bull? Selecting genetically hornless or “polled” sires will allow you to incorporate the polled trait into your herd and permanently eliminate dehorning from your to-do list.

Genetics has historically played a minor role in day-to-day herd management when compared to nutrition, udder health and reproduction. Genetic progress for most dairies consisted of selecting A.I. sires that might improve the herd’s main deficiencies, like production, feet and legs or udder composite.

On the dairy, the ability to get cows pregnant is the pivot point of profitability. Herds with sound reproduction programs are able to capture opportunities for milk production and genetic progress, while those that struggle to get cows bred back in a timely manner face the costly consequences of longer days open, increased breeding and replacement costs, and risk of reproduction-related culling.

The Dairy Cattle Reproduction Council (DCRC) annual meeting was held in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Nov. 7 and 8, 2013. The day-and-a-half event was intense with presentations and a sponsors’ trade show, but the outcome was a variety of topics and good discussion among university and industry people of what is new in research regarding improvements in reproductive performance and in overall dairy management.