When I am on the highway and pass a truck hauling calves to the feedlot, I am always reminded of the complex process that it takes to keep them healthy. The producer has to have a bit of faith when managing calves prone to stress-induced health difficulties in each step of their development, but there are items on the market that can help ease concern.

While growing up on a small dairy in western Wisconsin, I was primarily responsible for feeding the heifers. My dad would always delegate the poorer forage to this group of animals and did not pay much attention to their performance or even balance their rations.

Feed efficiency is a common method used in beef, swine and poultry operations to determine profitability and performance. This is a fairly easy calculation based on feed per pound of gain; however, with respect to dairy operations, the calculations become more complicated due to the number of variables that go into milk production.

Every animal has bacteria in their digestive system, and without these bacteria, they could not digest forage, grain or vitamins. As a result, farmers actually need to consider how to best feed the microbes in their animals’ digestive tracts.

Numerous products and feed additives have been used in an effort to improve the health and performance of baby calves. During the past year, we were involved in trials that looked at three ingredients. The additives were bone charcoal, a direct fed microbial (probiotic) and Immunoglobulin Y (IgY).

Over the years that I have worked with farmers on their dairy cow, calf and heifer diets, I have come to realize that I was not feeding the cow as much as I was feeding the microbial population in the animal.