Dairy calf care broadly affects behavior, including social interactions and feeding patterns, which impact calf performance and welfare. Miller-Cushon will discuss how early life experiences further influence...
My dad is an avid coffee drinker. We were running low on calf bottle holders, so we came up with an idea to reuse the plastic coffee containers for easier feeding
Heat stress abatement is not a novel concept to those in dairy circles. Decades of research indicate that heat-stressed lactating dairy cows will reduce feed intake and drop milk production
As farms across the country are faced with the reality of dumping milk and reducing production, some are looking to their rations to absorb the extra pounds of production
Michael Steele, University of Guelph, presented “Nutritional regulation of gut function in calves: colostrum and milk.” He shared the details about rearing newborn calves, and why those processes...
Individual calf housing is by far the most common form of calf rearing in the country. According to research done by the University of Wisconsin in 2019, 77% of farms raise calves individually
We made this pressure washer gun to wash the insides of our calf bottles on our bottle trailers. It is made so that three bottles can be washed at a time
Everything on a dairy farm begins with a calf. For that reason, in this article we will explore cow-calf research that was presented at the International Society of Applied Ethology (ISA
We went to Peach Teat Buckets to feed calves and needed a way to hang them. This is what we came up with. Get a 13-inch by 1.5-inch piece of metal and bend it at 5.25 inches into a 90-degree ang
I built a calf warmer from two water tanks that wouldn’t hold water anymore. I took one water tank and drilled holes in the sides to run steel piping through to create a floor base
To keep our calves clean, dry, and warm on harsh winter days or dry during those rainy days, I made a storm door that keeps the wet out but lets the sun in. I took a clear 4-foot by 3-fo
Managing growth is of fundamental importance to the heifer enterprise of a dairy farm. We know a heifer needs to meet certain growth goals by certain points in its life to meet a farm’s production...
Sometimes questions catch you off guard, and this is one that surprises me every time I hear it. “Is milk a good feed for calves?” Basic biology says, yes; milk is the feed intended for calves!
We got tired of running to the milking parlor office to get calf treatment supplies, so now we use this basket. Everyone knows where the medicine is, there are easy directions in there on what to brin
Consistently, research shows that the longer calves can be backgrounded (housed and fed individually) before they are put into a group pen setting, the better
From a business standpoint, the most money saved per heifer on a dairy farm can be saved in the weaned pens. This accounts for calves that are weaned up to when they are around 150 days...