Not only do we deal with stress in our lives, but we often create stressful situations for the animals we care for. Recognizing these events and taking measures to provide the animals with mechanisms to deal with stress can help them bounce back more quickly.

Lean into your consultants and fellow producers to troubleshoot and come up with solutions. Every operation is unique and will require unique solutions that work for your employees, facilities and budget.

Just as solid structural pillars form a strong foundation for the barn, these seven pillars of calf raising are powerful steps to help build a solid foundation for the future milking herd.

A calf’s gut is a blank slate at birth, but bacterial microbes quickly establish themselves within the first weeks of life. During this narrow window, the calf’s gastrointestinal (GI) tract is rapidly colonized by bacteria from equipment, colostrum and bedding – both beneficial as well as harmful.

To me, calf raising is a continuous journey of learning, hands-on experiences and skill development. That said, the key is to stay focused and avoid overthinking or overcomplicating the process.

There has been an increased incentive to feed the preweaned calf more milk to improve growth, feed efficiency and in many cases, health as compared to our traditional practice of limit feeding milk to stimulate rumen development and early weaning.

When fed aggressively, beef-on-dairy calves are hard to differentiate from native beef cattle by an untrained eye; however, these calves tend to be plagued with a fairly high incidence of liver abscesses, and this occurrence was the basis for our investigation.