Feeding more milk for longer key to healthier calves

There is ample research data to prove calves meeting high growth targets in the first few months of life suffer less illness than calves fed restricted milk rations.

The lack of the suppressive effect of illness, combined with the influence of epigenetic programming, also leads to them producing more milk over their lifetime, getting in calf more easily and having a lower before second lactation cull rate; all this translates into a more profitable dairy cow.

I spent three days at the United States based Dairy Calf and Heifer Association conference in Colorado.

One of the key take-home messages from the conference was that change happens exceedingly slowly.

The time it takes for research work to translate into on-farm change in management practices can be decades, which is frustrating for those of us who are industry advisers.

This seems to be especially true in the field of calves.

One of the speakers, whom I know quite well, is a calf consultant of note.

He said in his talk dairy managers are just too busy focusing on all the other "stuff" requiring their attention to tune in to the importance of calf management to the enterprise's bottom line.

Another of the speakers echoed this sentiment.

He has been a veterinarian and dairy management adviser since the mid '90s and also supervises many calf trials.

After three decades of consulting to calf raisers and dairy managers, he struggles with the lack of compliance from some farms.

He opened his speech by saying that calves are the most important animals on the farm; most dairy managers would verbally echo this sentiment.

However, he went on to say that the rhetoric does not translate into action on many of the farms he works with, and many consultants would agree with him.

The immediacy of dealing with an inoperative effluent pump, replacing a senior employee who has just stormed out or a cow needing urgent veterinary attention takes precedence over drawing up calf management protocols or training and supervising staff.

The two-year time lag between financial input and return on investment of calf-rearing costs means that managers tend to prioritise more immediate financial needs over spending more money feeding and caring for calves.

There were several conference sessions focusing on feeding and colostrum management.

Within this framework, there are many interacting factors in calf growth and subsequent productivity.

Colostrum/immunity

Early absorption of immunoglobulins is a key driver of subsequent health and productivity.

This can be easily assessed on-farm by measuring blood serum total protein levels (BSTPs). Recently the target levels have been raised.

Previously there was just a pass/fail score, where 5.2-5.5 grams per deciliter (g/dL) was considered good and under that pre-disposed calves to illness and death.

Now, on the new scale, good is now 5.8-6.1g/dL and excellent more than 6.2 g/dL.

Considering that many dairies have levels hovering around 5 g/dL, there is economic benefit in evaluating results and making management changes if a colostrum program is not delivering these results.

One of the producers who spoke at the conference runs a custom heifer-raising operation across three states.

He commented on the extra work involved in caring for low BSTP calves and will impose a $25/head surcharge to cover his extra labour costs for low immunity calves.

Another hot topic at the conference was the extended feeding of colostrum/transition milk for periods varying from three days to two weeks.

This concept is much more in line with what nature intended, with calves reared on the dam drinking only colostrum then transition milk for the first few days of life.

Even after gut closure, there are benefits from the extended feeding of transition milk.

These include:

Some of these factors have lifelong influences but one of the key influences is that the calf is more able to withstand disease challenges in early life.

This in turn, has a lifelong effect on productivity and profitability.

Milk feeding

The most cost-efficient way to grow heifers that are productive, long lived in the herd and therefore profitable is to feed them well in early life.

The decades old "early weaning" mantra of four litres of milk a day and weaning by six weeks is a recipe for raising unproductive heifers that suffer repeat illnesses and never repay their rearing costs.

There is a plethora of research supporting the financial return on a more biologically normal feeding regime.

The second of the speakers I mentioned urged calf managers to feed milk at a minimum rate of 6-8 litres/day early in life.

He said that even among the managers prepared to feed at or above 6 litres/day, many held off feeding more milk until the calves were more than two weeks old and had passed the time of greatest risk for diarrhoea.

It was the producers' belief that feeding more milk during this high risk scours period exacerbated the disease.

His belief, which I share, is that by feeding an adequate amount of milk early in life, calves will have the nutrient reserves to withstand disease challenges and will either not succumb to diarrhoea or will have a very mild infection.

In the US, now that it is more common for producers to be feeding above 6 litres milk, the pre-weaning death losses have dropped from the recent historical level of 8-11 per cent to 6.4pc.

Many producers are still pre-occupied by reducing input costs rather than having outcome-based goals that focus on return on investment, i.e. growing profitable dairy cows.

Another key fact, which has been reiterated many times, is that calves that break with clinical disease early in life will be more susceptible to pneumonia in the subsequent few weeks.

Calves fed on a higher plane of nutrition have consistently shown a lower incidence of diarrhoea and pneumonia.

Once a calf has had illness which requires treatment, its chances of ever being a profitable dairy cow have lessened considerably.

Staff satisfaction

Team members play an important role in achieving animal health targets.

There were several sessions at the conference dedicated entirely or in part to getting the best from team members.

Ideas mostly ranged around inclusion of team members and recognising their importance to the success of the enterprise. Things like:

These all featured highly in producers' or managers' comments.

Having a robust on-boarding and training system for new employees also featured highly; the operations with minimal staff turnover and a good relationship with employees were the ones spending at minimum of one day on induction and training procedures and offering continuous education opportunities.

*Jeanette Fisher is principal of Heifermax, phone 0428 867 551, email jfisher@heifermax.com.au, website heifermax.com.au.