Dairy Calves – After feed, the second largest annual expense of a dairy business’s production costs is raising heifer calves. Well raised calves will repay their investment in best management practices through higher milk production and a longer productive life.

Dairy farmers make decisions every day that can affect the health and welfare of their calves. According to research at the Royal Veterinary College, mortality rates of liveborn dairy heifers in their first month of life on British farms ranged from 0-12%.

Farmers should aim to maintain growth rates at a target 750-800g/day to calve at the most economic age of 24 months, and dairy calves jackets have an important role to play in maintaining growth rates when the temperature drops, keeping them warm so that they can then partition energy towards growth.

Sensitive to Dropping Temperatures

Calves below 3 weeks of age are the most vulnerable to decreased temperatures, and it is recommended that calf jackets are used if the temperature falls below 15°C. Dairy calves older than this may not require jackets unless the temperature decreases to below 5°C.

Wash Jackets to Reduce Scouring in Dairy Calves

As winter continues, dairy farmers are being reminded by UK levy board AHDB Dairy to disinfect calf jackets and put them through a hot wash between calves, to prevent the spread of diseases such as cryptosporidiosis.

Speaking at a recent AHDB Dairy Calves to Calving (CTC) event in Dorset, AHDB Dairy’s Technical Manager, Andy Dodd reiterated advice to farmers that cleaning dairy calves jackets should form part of any disease prevention strategy.

“Calf jackets can potentially harbor cryptosporidium eggs. These can only be destroyed if the dairy calves jackets are disinfected with a licensed cryptosporidium disinfectant and then washed at 60°C,” he said. Farmers should check that the disinfectants that they use and the calf jackets that they purchase are suitable for this.

It is also important to properly clean calf sheds and calving pens when clearing between calving and calves, removing muck, steam cleaning and disinfecting, before allowing to dry out to ensure that any unhatched eggs are killed.

Research has discovered that 50% of calves experience some sort of scours, with vets reporting that the vast majority of cases are due to cryptosporidiosis.

Cryptosporidiosis is caused by parasites and can lead to watery, yellow scours. Good hygiene practices are essential, considering it can be spread in the environment via other dairy calves and from dams.

Andy Dodd also stressed the need to increase milk volume fed to dairy calves as temperatures drop, explaining that for calves up to three weeks of age, for every 5-degree drop below 15 degrees, milk volume fed per head per day should increase by 0.33 litres. When increasing feed levels as a one-off to account for temperature changes it is also preferable to increase volume rather than concentration to help avoid nutritional scouring occurring.

Farming Grants:

Water Grant for Welsh Farmers

Flood Prevention Grants

Rural Development Grants

Farm Development Grants

Severn Trent Environmental Protection Scheme (STEPS)

Agrismart provides Water Management aimed at providing an ROI of around 36 months. Agrismart’s water management is over 75% self-sustainable. Providing an alternative source of water to mains incorporating rainwater harvesting, zero energy pump, water treatment, water storage, water tanks and water system installation. Providing your agricultural business with a complete agricultural water management solution and alternative to mains water.

Farming Solutions

Agrismart offers a comprehensive range of products chosen specifically to resolve modern day farming issues at a lower cost than currently available. All our farming solutions are designed to offer smarter farm management solutions, allowing farmers to address core farming issues and take back some control in an industry that’s so reliant on the unpredictability of nature, disease and weather.

Farming Solutions

Health

Monitoring temperature in cattle is an effective way of preventing illness as early warning allows treatment before illness appears.

Cattle Temperature Monitoring

Traceability

Agrismart currently have Livestock ID, equipment ID and security tags in production! Sheep registration, sheep tagging, cattle registration, cattle tagging

Traceability

Genetics

Dairy & Beef Sires. We offer semen that will match your specific breeding requirements and that suit your individual farming systems – helping you to plan for profitability.

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