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Although the methods used to feed cows and raise calves have moved into the 21st century, Dr. Jud Heinrichs, professor of dairy science at Penn State, said many farms are raising heifers like it is still the 1970s.
Heinrichs presented “Precision Feeding Dairy Heifers” at the Four State Dairy Nutrition and Management Conference held June 12 and 13 in Dubuque, Iowa.
Developing and validating a standardized scoring system for bovine respiratory disease tops the priority list for a team of veterinarians and scientists at the University of California – Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine and the Department of Animal Science.
The research team, with the assistance of dairy managers and staff, are knee-deep in a project that targets prevention, diagnosis and treatment of bovine respiratory disease in dairy calves.
Editor’s note: The following is an edited excerpt from Dr. Donald E. Sanders’ book “Raising Heifer Replacements – Doc’s Way,” published in 2012 by Vaca Resources.
A wise client recently told me that if you are going to succeed in the dairy business, you must be 100 percent better than neighboring dairy farms – that is, 5 percent better in each of 20 different management skills.
Calves represent the future of every dairy herd, and delivering proper nutrients during their first critical hours of life is vital to their survival. It’s been well-documented that there are long-term benefits of feeding high-quality colostrum and feeding to a higher plane of nutrition.
Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is one of the most important management issues on dairy farms and calf ranches.
It’s the most common disease in calves more than 30 days old and has long-term effects on the life of the animal.
I am often asked to visit a calf operation to discuss feeding programs, disease prevention, operation management and overall calf performance. On these visits, we usually start in the office or the milk mixing area and go over expectations of the visit or establish goals of the operation.
Veal calves comprise approximately 0.25 percent of total red meat production in the U.S., yet they account for nearly 25 percent of the positive tissue residue tests. Similarly, market dairy cows represent 7.7 percent of total beef production but account for more than 66 percent of total tissue residues.
Immunity in a healthy and strong calf begins before birth.
Producers often focus on the pathogens that create disease in young calves, but the focus needs to shift to a holistic approach in building up immunity through colostrum, nutrition, the calving process, environment and management.
Is your heifer-raising operation a profitable one?
How many heifers do you need to support your dairy herd’s turnover rate?
Should you consider culling some of your youngstock?
The University of Guelph has just completed the data collection phase of a large study designed to increase understanding of clinical and subclinical pneumonia and its long-term effects in dairy calves through the use of ultrasonography.
This study comes as a follow-up to a pilot project in which roughly 14 percent of calves with pneumonia showed minimal or no signs of illness (like the calf pictured at right).
Unfortunately, identifying cases of subclinical pneumonia and measuring its effects are impossible without tools that specifically detect consolidated, pneumonic lung – such as ultrasonography.
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