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With heifer raising accounting for roughly 20 percent of total farm expenses, paying close attention to heifer nutrition and management is essential for raising quality replacement animals without adding on unnecessary expenses.
Since dairy calves are born immune-deficient, successful passive transfer of immunoglobulin G (IgG) is essential to protecting calves from any disease challenges they encounter early in life.
Complications associated with dairy calf diarrhea are the leading cause of calf mortality in our industry. Successful recovery from diarrhea relies on the implementation of appropriate nutritional strategies in the early stages of the disease.
Today, many producers are looking to reduce costs and improve profits on their operations. An area often overlooked is the cost of raising replacement heifers.
Ultrasonography is gaining momentum as a way to monitor lung health in young dairy cattle. An ultrasound exam takes less than a minute and helps us understand the presence and severity of underlying pneumonia.
Successful calf and heifer raising can be measured in a few ways. Ultimately, the investment put into replacement animals results in a reduced age at first calving (optimum target of 22 to 24 months), leading to lower costs as fewer heifers are raised and higher returns due to greater lifetime profitability.
To successfully implement current scientific findings on metabolic programming in practice, and thus raise healthier calves with a better performance potential and higher milk yield, the more traditional dietary recommendations of feeding calves must be revised.
Calf management programs have traditionally focused on calf survival and treatment rates. Traditional feeding strategies involved restricting the amount of milk or milk replacer offered to the calf to encourage grain intake in an effort to accelerate weaning, reduce the potential for scours and other illness, and reduce the cost of feeding and management.
Recent research done at the University of Guelph identified over 26 percent of male calves had a significantly enlarged navel with heat, pain, moisture or malodorous discharge when examined at arrival to a veal facility.
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