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Calf pneumonia is the second major cause of treatment and loss in pre-weaned dairy calves. Pneumonia is a preventable disease. Although, we can treat pneumonia in calves.
Disbudding without pain control is painful. All methods work by removing or damaging horn-producing tissue, and all methods have been shown to cause pain when done without appropriate pain control.
Let’s take everything you know about feeding pasteurized waste milk and set it aside for a moment. There’s a lot of information out there, and I think we can all agree, it’s good to take a step back sometimes and reevaluate.
A heifer’s life can be divided into four main periods: newborn and colostrum; pre-weaning; post-weaning; and growing, puberty and pregnancy. Using key benchmarks and well-established protocols during these periods allow producers to find opportunities in replacement programs and allow them to concentrate on changes that will impact profitability.
A tremendous amount of focus and attention is given to trying to reduce sickness and death occurring in the preweaning period or the first 60 days of life. However, an even more deadly period in the calf’s life occurs in the first few hours after birth.
Calves are the future of your dairy. We know their health, growth and performance before weaning will have impacts on production, reproduction and longevity later in life.
What’s your dairy cow’s milkfat content? It’s an easy question, right? You likely have milkfat records from generations on your farm and could readily explain how your milk components have changed over the years or pinpoint what management and feeding practices caused reductions or increases in milkfat.
Keeping calves alive means you have a successful calf-raising program, right? While it’s true that low mortality is a critical metric, in today’s economic environment many other parameters contribute to calf-raising success.
During the gestation period, a cow does all it can to grow an embryo into a calf. The dam’s contributions for its offspring to be successful do not cease at parturition.
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