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Raising replacement heifers is the second-highest cost to a dairy enterprise, making up nearly 20 percent of production costs. More than 15 percent of that total cost is incurred during the first two months of life, when milk replacer makes up a large portion of nutrient intake.
Raising crossbred calves for the beef market requires intensive management with a focus on calf health and nutrition. Getting calves off to a good start, and getting them to grow well, necessitates providing a low-stress environment and feeding for gain.
Raising replacement heifers is one of the largest investments made on a dairy. The costs associated with heifer raising can represent up to 20 percent of milk production costs, making this line item the second- or third-largest expense for an operation, after feed and possibly labor.
In Canadian dairy herds, the average stillbirth rate is 8 percent, but this varies between 0 and 17 percent across herds; the best 25 percent of these herds could be used as home-grown producer benchmarks for the industry.
Understanding the link between nutrition, healthy claws and production
Inadequate nutrition during the rearing period may result in heifers of insufficient size at breeding, delayed ovulation, delayed first breeding and extended time to entrance into the lactating herd as a first-calf heifer.
Editor’s note: This article is part one in a two-part series on what to look for during a calf pen walk-through. Part two: Calf hutch walk-throughs: What you need to look for.
Many times when I’m walking calves on a farm, an employee will ask, “So, what are you looking at anyway?”
This article was #25 of the Top 25 most well-read articles on www.progressivedairy.com in 2012. to jump to the article. It was published in the January 23, 2012 Extra. Click here for the full list of the Top 25.
ImmuCell’s calf specialist Bobbi Brockmann listed the top reasons why immediate immunity is important. Brockmann wrote, “Studies show that calves with inadequate serum IgG concentrations at 24 hours old are 3.2 to 9.5 times more likely to become sick and 5.4 times more likely to die before weaning.”
Because this article was so popular, we asked Brockmann:
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