Calves & Heifers

A calf’s digestive system is a battleground between good and bad bacteria. Nutritional additives can bolster good bacteria or diminish bad bacteria to improve gut health, leading to efficient nutrient digestion.

Have you ever wondered how valuable feeding a high-quality feed was on calf performance and the impact on your cost of production? We assembled a controlled research study to address this practical topic that was recently published in the Journal of Dairy Science.

Probiotics aren’t new to the dairy industry. In fact, they’ve been around for a long time. However, with a recent focus on antibiotic use, there’s a renewed interest in feed additives that support calf health. Probiotics are one option.

During the 2018 Vita Plus Calf Summit, Jan Ziemerink, CEO at Foerster-Technik North America, shared his advice on how to properly manage calf auto-feeders and avoid some common mistakes. Auto-feeder systems face many challenges, including temperature, moisture (humidity), dust, colostrum genetics, environment and ventilation. Overcoming these challenges is important for raising healthy calves on an auto-feeder.

Calf diarrhea is a costly, but common problem on today’s dairies. In fact, according to the 2014 NAHMS data, diarrhea was responsible for 56 percent of pre-weaned heifer deaths. In addition, recent research shows that even when calves overcome this disease challenge, there are still negative consequences in the form of reduced first-lactation milk production and increased age at first calving. Thus, preventing diarrhea is essential to raising healthy calves.

Minimizing heifer-raising costs without sacrificing heifer quality can be a challenge for many dairies. To help shed some light on this, Matt Akins, assistant scientist at the University of Wisconsin, spoke at the 2018 Vita Plus Calf Summit on some opportunities he sees in current heifer-raising practices.