Jersey Calves on an Organic Dairy

Each year I volunteer to be an on-farm guide for the "baby calf station" for all the 6-year old children in our local area. Nearly two hundred and fifty children show up on a sunny day in early June to spend three hours on a small dairy farm.

Yesterday, June 1, was the day for 2016. The dairy had the youngest calves in individual fiberglass hutches (ages in days = 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9). Once the calves are drinking well from a nursing bottle and a larger super hutch is available they are moved into one of these in groups of four. Yesterday they had four of these super hutches with calves about four, eight and ten weeks old.

These 6-year olds had questions mostly about:

1. age - how old are they?

2. food - what do they eat?

3. mother - where is her mother?

4. activity - can she really walk around when she is only 1 (3, 4) day old? (probably related to experience with kitten and puppies?)

Most popular calf to look at? The one-day old - all 40 pounds of her.

The eight and ten-week old calves were up and walking about their pens so they attracted attention as well. 

The children also visited the milking parlor (double 10 parallel swing design), milk room with plate cooler and milk tank, free stall barn with sand stalls, feed alley with TMR, milk tanker truck (with air horn) and the haylage harvesting equipment. This was sort of a guided tour where the whole class moved along as a group. They completed the tour with a visit with the Genesee County Dairy Princess and her helpers where they all had an opportunity to churn (shake a 30ml bottle) heavy cream into butter and eat the butter with pretzel sticks - anything that involves eating is popular. 

In addition, after the tour, there were sixteen more "learning stations" where small groups of children with an adult could visit as they were interested. 

They had a chance to sit on the shaded lawns and eat their bag lunches (along with donated cheese and milk from a local dairy cooperative). 

Each year I am impressed with the commitment of a mostly volunteer crew that supports the event. The teachers always comment on how good it is for the children to see where their milk (and milk products) come from. 

Checking Passive Transfer of Immunity

One of my clients routinely checks on passive transfer of immunity once a month.

Industry goals are:

90 percent at or above 5.0g/dl, and

75 percent at or above 5.5g/dl.

The May report just came to my desk.

These are the 2016 results: (bold shows failure to meet industry goals)

                                                     January  March    April     May  

Percent at or above 5.0g/dl             82%       92%     88%      82%

Percent at or above 5.5g/dl             82%       92%     88%      55%

(N)                                                  11           12          8          11

The May values look like this: (in order by calf ID number)

5.5

6.2

4.3

4.8

5.8

6.1

5.9

5.4

6.1

5.3

5.2

Notice that the lowest BSTP values are grouped. Additional information would be needed to pick out the most reasonable reason for these low values.

Here are several examples:

1. Low quality colostrum from one cow fed to two calves in a row? [a breakdown of the farm protocol to check all colostrum before feeding].

2. Possible delay in feeding colostrum - were these calves born at a time when labor was not available to promptly feed colostrum - calves had to wait to the end of the milking shift to receive their first feeding of colostrum?

3. Person assigned to feed colostrum did not have the skills needed to use a tube feeder - maybe the calves received less than the prescribed four quarts of colostrum?

4. The colostrum fed to these two sets of calves had a high bacteria count? For example, the warm colostrum sat in the  utility room for several hours before being bottled and chilled. 

Bottom line - The potential for improvement depends on routine checking for passive transfer success. 

Surges in Calvings: Responding Positively Rather than 

"Muddling Through"

This is the title of a new Calf Facts resource sheet just added to the Calf Facts section of the www.atticacows.com web site. Click 

A summary of the content is:

• Breeding records allow us to accurately predict sustained surges in calvings.

• These sustained surges in calvings can overload the calf care system creating sub-standard care.

• It is better to manage overloads rather than just “muddle through” and have compromised calf care.

• Choose between decreasing the calf population, increasing resources or some combination of the two.

Colostrum: Feeding Strategies

This is the title of a new Calf Facts resource sheet just added to the Calf Facts section of the www.atticacows.com web site. Click HERE to go to the resource sheet.

A summary of the content is:

• When testing colostrum quality it is recommended to take a sample from the milker bucket to use with a Colostrometer or Brix refractometer.

• However, if hand-milked colostrum (first three or four quarts) must be used, for practical purposes it will have an antibody concentration relatively close to colostrum coming from a cow that is milked out entirely.

• Fully forty to fifty percent of calves will voluntarily consume three or more quarts in the first feeding.

• Always have a person available who is trained to use an esophageal tube feeder. It is common to have as many as three out of ten calves that will not voluntarily drink even two quarts of colostrum.

• Follow best management practices when using an esophageal tube feeder for colostrum feeding. For a review of these practices go to http://www.atticacows.com/documentView.asp?docID=6030.

Colostrum: Quantity and Quality Variation

This is the title of a new Calf Facts resource sheet just added to the Calf Facts section of the www.atticacows.com web site. Click Here to go to the resource sheet. 

A summary of the content is:

• Findings from two studies are summarized, one from Pennsylvania and the other was US national including twelve states.

• Later lactation cows had higher levels of antibody concentration.

• Poor quality colostrum was present for all lactations - better to check before feeding.

• Average quantity was in the range of 6.4 to 7.2 quarts (6-6.8l).

• There was a very wide variation in antibody (IgG) concentration at every interval of colostrum quantity. Volume was an unpredictable guide for sorting out the lowest quality colostrum. 

• Better to measure than guess - both Colostrometer or Brix refractometer are practical on-farm means of estimating antibody concentration.

Ventilation - Managing Calf Barns

This is the title of a new Calf Facts resource sheet just added to the Calf Facts section of the www.atticacows.com web site.

A summary of the content is:

• Setting air quality goals

• Measuring air quality – what to do

• Managing housing – if you are already meeting your goals right now

• Managing housing - when threshold values are not met

Enjoy.

Treating Sick Calves and Biosecurity

I was just reviewing a study of US calf ranches (that is, places that raise either only heifer calves or both bull and heifer calves). W. L Walker and Others, "Characteristics of dairy calf ranches: morbidity, mortality, antibiotic use practices, and biosecurity and biocontainment practices." Journal of Dairy Science 95:2204-2214.

Two practices caught my attention.

1. "When sick preweaned calves were treated or examined, the person treating or examining them usually entered their pen or individual housing area."

2. "Personnel were required to wear disposable gloves while working with preweaned calves."

What did I do while working with my calves twenty years ago?

Yes, if I checked out a calf that might be sick I got right in and up close.

No, I did not wear disposable gloves. And, maybe even worse, I did not in any way clean off my rubber boots after checking out a sick calf! I have no idea why more of my calves did not get sick! 

One of my clients has a bio-security routine that I have been admiring. The calves are housed outdoors in individual hutches far enough apart that the calf care person has to take several steps between hutches. All the calves that need to be examined or treated have a white plastic clip attached to the wire pen in front of the hutch. The examining and treating is done separately from any feeding activity.

This is the protocol:

1. Positively identify the calf to be examined/treated. All the calves have easy to read ear tags, calves to be examined/treated have large white clips on the wire pen outside the hutch.

2. Set a small footbath down from the back of the 4-wheeler.

3. Pull on disposable gloves.

4. Step into footbath, using a small garden-type pressure sprayer containing a disinfectant solution to spray off boots.

5. Enter wire pen and examine/treat calf.

6. Exit pen, step into footbath and spray off boots, stomping up and down to rinse bottom of boots. 

7. Dump footbath, put in back of Gator, discard gloves and drive on to next calf to examine/treat.

Back in 1991 I never even thought about this level of biosecurity.

Maybe all of us need to think more seriously about how we spread pathogens from calf to calf as we provide care?