Yesterday evening, I did a routine call to carry out a TB test on some calves that had gone over six weeks. The farm is a winter-milking herd of about 90 cows. It was a call I was quite nervous about, as this was a farm where we had put a calf health programme in place before the start of calving in October. I had touched base with the calf-rearer on a couple of occasions and the reported progress was good. The calf-rearer in this case was the farmer’s wife. The updates were good, but she wanted to wait and see if it was a consistent improvement.
My first question before my boots hit the ground was ‘‘how were the calves?’’ Her response was simply ‘‘see for yourself’’. As I rounded the corner into the calf shed, I was amazed with what I saw before me.
Transformation
The farm had some of the best Friesian heifer calves I’d seen this year and some young Angus crosses – and they were shining. It was a transformation and a win for me personally, as an advocate of herd health, but for this lady it was huge. She had overcome obstacles of infrastructure and triumphed through dedication and perseverance; by doing the simple things really well, she had transformed calf health.
This story began a year ago when the farm was struggling with calf pneumonia and general calf thrives. I made a visit to the farm and we carried out some emergency interventions and treatments. There was no huge success but we made some general recommendations. Then, in the spring of that year, the problems continued with thrive, ringworm and pneumonia.
Calf health programme
I could feel the frustration as she had attended a calf health seminar we ran. It was all about gold standards and best practice. The reality on this farm, like many others, was that the financial constraints changing infrastructure in the short term was a non-runner. With this in mind, we both agreed to start a calf health programme prior to autumn-calving. So, before a calf hit the ground in October, we had a plan.
This plan was a simple one.
We needed to move the calves from beside the cow cubicle shed to a separate airspace.We needed to adapt a machine shed with bales and gates into a calf shed.We needed this to be warm and dry at calf level (comfortable) with plenty of fresh air and no draughts.We needed to work hard at colostrum with the first milking two hours and three litres. We added a calf iodine and selenium tablet at birth with colostrum. This was done to combat poor suck which thrives in day-old calves.Calves needed to be fed a minimum of three litres of whole milk twice daily from the start and building it up. We aimed to wean between eight and 10 weeks.Buckets of clean, fresh water were readily available.We focused hugely on hygiene routine around feeding equipment.Young calves got an intranasal live RSV/PI3 vaccine at between five and 14 days in batches of five.The main focus, however, was on feeding and calf comfort. The straw was not spared and the shed was adapted brilliantly to maximise the comfort of these calves. I was blown away by what they had done with limited resources.
Doing the simple things
Now, because resources were lacking and infrastructure was difficult, it meant labour was more intensive in the first few weeks. The reality is that some will see this as inefficient and a bad use of time. However, we must face the reality that we can’t all build new calf sheds.
This for me was a massive win, and even greater was seeing someone you advised getting the results from all their hard work. It showed that planning ahead, isolating the risk areas and putting control measures in place, will get results.
Doing the simple things to the best of our ability can lead to massive changes. Maybe, sometime in the future, they can invest in calf sheds but for now they have a system they work a little harder at, but can still get great results. I certainly always don’t get it right but a win like this does everyone’s moral good and helps to reinforce the conviction you have the right approach.
Read more
Vet’s corner: paying attention to hygiene pays off
Three-part series: tips for calf rearing in 2016
Yesterday evening, I did a routine call to carry out a TB test on some calves that had gone over six weeks. The farm is a winter-milking herd of about 90 cows. It was a call I was quite nervous about, as this was a farm where we had put a calf health programme in place before the start of calving in October. I had touched base with the calf-rearer on a couple of occasions and the reported progress was good. The calf-rearer in this case was the farmer’s wife. The updates were good, but she wanted to wait and see if it was a consistent improvement.
My first question before my boots hit the ground was ‘‘how were the calves?’’ Her response was simply ‘‘see for yourself’’. As I rounded the corner into the calf shed, I was amazed with what I saw before me.
Transformation
The farm had some of the best Friesian heifer calves I’d seen this year and some young Angus crosses – and they were shining. It was a transformation and a win for me personally, as an advocate of herd health, but for this lady it was huge. She had overcome obstacles of infrastructure and triumphed through dedication and perseverance; by doing the simple things really well, she had transformed calf health.
This story began a year ago when the farm was struggling with calf pneumonia and general calf thrives. I made a visit to the farm and we carried out some emergency interventions and treatments. There was no huge success but we made some general recommendations. Then, in the spring of that year, the problems continued with thrive, ringworm and pneumonia.
Calf health programme
I could feel the frustration as she had attended a calf health seminar we ran. It was all about gold standards and best practice. The reality on this farm, like many others, was that the financial constraints changing infrastructure in the short term was a non-runner. With this in mind, we both agreed to start a calf health programme prior to autumn-calving. So, before a calf hit the ground in October, we had a plan.
This plan was a simple one.
We needed to move the calves from beside the cow cubicle shed to a separate airspace.We needed to adapt a machine shed with bales and gates into a calf shed.We needed this to be warm and dry at calf level (comfortable) with plenty of fresh air and no draughts.We needed to work hard at colostrum with the first milking two hours and three litres. We added a calf iodine and selenium tablet at birth with colostrum. This was done to combat poor suck which thrives in day-old calves.Calves needed to be fed a minimum of three litres of whole milk twice daily from the start and building it up. We aimed to wean between eight and 10 weeks.Buckets of clean, fresh water were readily available.We focused hugely on hygiene routine around feeding equipment.Young calves got an intranasal live RSV/PI3 vaccine at between five and 14 days in batches of five.The main focus, however, was on feeding and calf comfort. The straw was not spared and the shed was adapted brilliantly to maximise the comfort of these calves. I was blown away by what they had done with limited resources.
Doing the simple things
Now, because resources were lacking and infrastructure was difficult, it meant labour was more intensive in the first few weeks. The reality is that some will see this as inefficient and a bad use of time. However, we must face the reality that we can’t all build new calf sheds.
This for me was a massive win, and even greater was seeing someone you advised getting the results from all their hard work. It showed that planning ahead, isolating the risk areas and putting control measures in place, will get results.
Doing the simple things to the best of our ability can lead to massive changes. Maybe, sometime in the future, they can invest in calf sheds but for now they have a system they work a little harder at, but can still get great results. I certainly always don’t get it right but a win like this does everyone’s moral good and helps to reinforce the conviction you have the right approach.
Read more
Vet’s corner: paying attention to hygiene pays off
Three-part series: tips for calf rearing in 2016
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