No matter the situation, follow these steps to properly tube a calf.

Do you feel prepared to raise calves during the winter season? The lower critical temperature of a young dairy calf is 50ºF, which means that the calf’s energy requirement begins to increase in order to maintain core body temperature in conditions below 50ºF.

You add it to bread to make the dough rise, and you use it to ferment beer and wine. But why feed yeasts to your herd?

If you’ve experienced a severe burn, you’ll know all too well that the pain doesn’t disappear overnight. In fact, it can get worse before it gets better. When it comes to hot-iron disbudding, calves may be in a similar boat.

As cheese production and consumption has grown over the last 20-plus years, so has the production of whey. In the early years of cheese-making, whey was considered a waste product that needed to be disposed of.

Editor’s note: This is the second of two articles about managing the maternity area and newborn calves using a team approach. Click here to read the first article "Putting more 'Ma' in your maternity: The cow's perspective".

When you hear the word “transition,” do you automatically think of your pre- and post-fresh cows? Most dairymen do, but there’s another important transition group that requires your attention. That group is made up of calves transitioning off milk and onto a diet made up of dry feeds.

Change. Not many people like it. In fact, there are hundreds of books, podcasts and seminars all dedicated to the topic of “embracing change.”

Myths – we’ve all heard them. Bulls hate red, salt helps water boil faster, you shouldn’t wake a sleepwalker, and on and on and on …

Recent research done at the University of Guelph identified over 26 percent of male calves had a significantly enlarged navel with heat, pain, moisture or malodorous discharge when examined at arrival to a veal facility.