The heifer facility at Elm Farms Inc. is a little over a year old. Michelle Hasheider-Burianek and her father, Norbert Hasheider, operate the third-generation dairy farm. See more of Elm Farms' new heifer facility in the slideshow below:

In this video, Ann Hoskins, Vita Plus calf products coordinator, reminds us that cleanliness is key to raising healthy calves in any system. She shares tips for cleaning automatic calf feeders and identifying potential hot spots for bacterial growth.

Every good calf manager strives to achieve optimal calf health and growth. It’s a fact of life, however, that some calves will get sick. Therefore, managers also have plans for identifying and treating diseased calves. Ideally, if sick calves are identified promptly and treated appropriately, they will recover and go on to be healthy productive adults.

To get calves off to a fast start and achieve early growth goals, calf and heifer raisers invest in newborn and pre-weaned calf nutrition. Despite the extra attention on pre-weaned calf performance, it is not uncommon for the level of calf nutrition to slough off once calves are weaned.

It’s always exciting when new calves arrive. You want to do everything you can to help your newborns thrive and grow. One of the critical first steps in ensuring overall health is to feed enough high-quality colostrum in the first 24 hours of life, as calves are born with no antibodies to fight dangerous organisms.

“That depends,” you say. “Are you talking about comparing the two liquids or whether colostrum feeding affects future production?” Both, I say.

When walking through calf barns and hutches during the winter, it is somewhat difficult to differentiate sickness behavior from cold-stress behavior. Interestingly, calf behaviors are quite similar when they are struggling with a disease challenge and when they are battling cold weather. In young calves, both stressors decrease activity and reduce thriftiness of appearance.