Dairy producers fine-tuning their calves’ rations need to keep high-quality starters in the mix to get optimal growth. That’s according to South Dakota Cooperative Extension Dairy Specialist Alvaro Garcia, who said a report in a recent issue of the Journal of Dairy Science evaluated the effects of milk amounts on dairy heifer calves. “Khan and collaborators published a review that considered the amount of milk fed and its impact on solid feed intake, weaning and performance,” Garcia said. “This extensive review suggested that limiting milk intake to approximately 1 gallon per day leaves calves hungry and can compromise their growth, health, welfare and future milk production.”

Clean heifers are an integral part of mastitis prevention at Five Star Dairy (a DCHA sustaining member), Elk Mound, Wisconsin. The dairy keeps heifers clean and dry by using a bedded-pack housing system prior to calving. This arrangement helps prevent bacteria in the environment from colonizing heifer teat ends and entering the teat orifice. This attention to cleanliness, rather than pre-treating heifers, is the preferred method for controlling mastitis in heifers at the dairy, and it has proven successful.

It can be debated whether heifers are the most low-maintenance group on the dairy. The truth is they can be low maintenance, if we give them the right start. Healthy heifers come from healthy calves and they become productive cows when we give them the tools they need at the right time. Start your heifer health protocol as soon as they are born. Calving pens should be cleaned after each cow gives birth to reduce opportunity of disease transmission. After a cow has calved, don’t wait to milk the recently fresh cow with the animals in the hospital or fresh pens.

Editor’s note: The following article is the third in a series discussing electrolyte formulation and function in calves. Click here to read the first part, and click here to read the second in the series. Earlier in this series, we saw that strong ions fully dissociate from other substances when they dissolve in water. This dissociation not only affects the electrolyte solution being fed to the calf, it also has profound effects within the animal itself.

Editor’s note: The following article is the second in a series discussing electrolyte formulation and function in calves. Click here to read the first article in the series. A curious thing about electrolyte ingredients is that even though they are listed on the label, many of them don’t end up in the solution we feed to the calf. There is no sodium chloride. There is no sodium bicarbonate, or sodium acetate, calcium lactate, potassium chloride or a number of other ingredients. So ... what happens to them? It’s actually quite simple. They dissociate, or separate into their basic components when they dissolve in water – or any aqueous medium such as blood plasma and other body fluids.

Milk replacer is formulated to balance major nutrients (protein, fat and carbohydrates) with an optimal fortification of vitamins and minerals. When designing any nutrition program, the calf’s health, size and age must be considered. Historically, citations in scientific literature have documented trials where calves have been fed diets low in energy, depriving them of much-needed nutrition. Recent work has rightfully demonstrated that increased nutrition in the calf for optimized growth leads to many positive outcomes, including better milk output in the first lactation.

The investment made in young heifers today lays the groundwork for future herd performance and profitability. Heifers are a group of animals that may be overlooked at a time of tight margins. However, when their needs go unmet, growth, health and, ultimately, lifetime production can all be negatively impacted. The long-term consequences of cutting expenses in the heifer pen are a huge price to pay for small reductions in rearing costs. There are producers doing it right – investing in their heifer pens for earlier breeding and calving, leading to greater milk production. Raising heifers to their potential is something Aardema Dairy of Wendell, Idaho, has valued in an effort to achieve optimal herd performance, starting with their young calves.