While it may be tempting to raise every heifer calf, especially when replacement rates are high, it is essential to your profitability to identify when and why culling is necessary.

Combating the pathogen that causes scours, providing for the calf's physiological demands (hydration, energy and acid/base balance) and restoring intestinal health are the three main objectives of calf scours therapy.

Many producers turn to a custom calf raiser because they want to offload heifer-raising challenges. You might have other reasons for sending calves away, such as saving forage and labor for the milking herd or the lack of updated calf facilities.

Learn how to manage forage inventories after harvest, improve average daily gain of calves and capitalize during times of tight farm margins.

Understanding the fundamentals of vaccination helps optimize the return on your vaccine investments and ensure calves are prepared for the challenges they’ll face.

Salmonella are very contagious and pathogenic bacteria that can cause high mortality and economic losses in cattle. Salmonella Dublin (S. Dublin) is a specific kind of salmonella, known as a serotype, that is host-adapted to bovine.

If you are consistently having problems with your calves, consider having a third party complete a calf hygiene audit and ask about using an ATP meter.

I now view the common risk factors for disease – such as failure of passive transfer, dirty facilities and feeding equipment, cold stress and poor nutrition – as symptoms of a lack of proactive, structured monitoring programs designed to track protocol compliance as well as calf performance.

When trying to understand the impact scours can have, producers often overlook many variables, including what happens to a calf that got sick but recovered.