Maybe you know it all and have tried it all, but I hope you will find something new and helpful.
Colostrum
- Place a high priority on feeding 4 quarts of colostrum in the first few hours of life.
- Colostrum quality is key. Consider investing in a Brix refractometer to test colostrum.
Dehorning
- If you dehorn with paste, try trimming back the hair with a men’s facial hair trimmer instead of a scissors.
- Wear a milking glove and apply paste with your finger.
Feeding
- Consistency and cleanliness are key. Make sure all employees are on the same page.
- Use a scale to measure milk replacer and eliminate human error.
- Place a dog dish or the bottom part of an ice cream pail in grain buckets for newer calves. This allows them to access grain without having to stick their head into a deep pail and encourages them to eat grain. It also prevents your calf feeders from overfeeding.
- Be patient.
- Put yogurt in the milk. Yogurt contains lactic acid bacteria and can help reduce the pH of a calf’s stomach to the point where E.coli cannot grow.
- Consider feeding a pro/prebiotic for a healthy gut.
- Empty water pails in a larger bucket and/or tub instead of on the ground to reduce the fly population in the summer and ice patches in the winter.
- Keep grain pails inside the hutch to prevent it from getting wet.
- In the winter, maintain milk temperature by placing a heavy-duty sleeping bag over bottles while transporting to the hutches.
- Use different colored clothes pins on hutches to identify treated calves, weaned calves, calves that didn’t finish milk, etc.
Housing
- Keep hutches cool in the hot months by putting a car sun reflector and/or sunshade on top of the hutch.
- Keep hutches warm in the winter by bedding with sawdust and straw. You can also buy (or make) doors for the front of the hutches.
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PHOTO: Getty Images.
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Annaliese Wegner
- Dairy Producer
- Ettrick, Wisconsin
- Email Annaliese Wegner
