Dairy calves always been so vulnerable?

[Countrygent51]

This is more or less a question about farming history, not a current issue I am facing. I've read the sticky on advice for bottle calves and it is pretty overwhelming! It seems like you need to open your own vet clinic to deal with the massive range of health issues confronting these calves and need to count yourself lucky if they survive.

Here's my question: has it always been this way or is this some more recent problem associated with "biosecurity issues" (or whatever fancy term you want to use), the nature of current dairying practices, something else? Would the 1950s dairy farmer like my grandfather just expect to lose most of their calves or what were they doing that we don't do today? We had dairy cows when I was younger but they were gone before I was old enough to learn much of the practical side as I did with sheep, hogs, poultry, etc. Still I don't recall that were had massive attrition rates with our newborn calves. So am I just having selective memory about how hard it was to raise them?

[sassafras manor]

Is it possible that not that long ago they left the calves with the mother longer therefore reducing the risk of loss? Maybe they were not so consious of the bottom line and cared more for the well-being of the animals. I am not saying that today's practices are wrong by all means but times were much more laid back then.

[boiledfrog]

I got six calves from a dairy that guaranteed them. Not even a sniffle. I get six calves from the auction four will die no matter how much antibiotic shots/feed they get. It is very much the dairy's method. My folks raised bottle calves in the 80's and had much better results. I think in the next ten years we will start seeing whole herds wiped out with antibiotic resistant influenza. I could be wrong my crystal ball is covered in cow manure.

[springvalley]

I have grown up on a farm and farmed all my life and we have no more trouble now than we did 50 years ago. And we didn`t have much problems years ago either. I feed my calves cows milk, I don`t believe in milk replacer. I think they are much healthier and get what they need from their Moms milk. I do have an advantage over some of you growing up on a farm, but raising calves is no big deal. But if I grew up in the city, I would have no freakin clue what I was doing. > Thanks Marc

[gone-a-milkin]

The big difference is having them raised on the same site they are born.


The 'Sale Barn' calves have all travelled from different places and do not all receive adequate new-born care.
Then they get exposed to new germs, stressed, and fed a different ration.

It isnt fair to compare dairy practices of the past to the ones being discussed in that other thread.

I do believe there are new and drug-resistant strains of bacteria now, and moving animals around increases the spread of those strains too.

[haypoint]

Just like most things in life, a little of this and a little of that.
50 years ago, most folks with cattle knew what they were doing. This web site is chock full of newbies. I think over feeding and poor housing kill most newbie's calves. Undoing those problems takes a lot of drugs. Experienced folk can see trouble coming. Newbies wait until they're off their feed and resting their nose on their hip.
When selecting traits for a dairy, surviveability isn't considered, milk production is. Ever notice the horses at the Kentucky Derby as they go into the chute? Those horses aren't bred for friendlyness. Any time a breeding program gets single minded, other traits suffer.

[gone-a-milkin]

I agree that overfeeding and poor housing are huge factors for newbies.
Add in a crop of already stressed and exposed calves... well.

Survivability is one of those natural acts though. It is pretty difficult to propegate bloodlines that die in infancy, isnt it??

Dairy cows are not only selected for their milk production. Just look at the Select Sires stats.
They need to have somewhat agreeable temperments, decent feet, ease of calving, udder placement, shape, etc.
I would say that a lot of thought is put into their breeding.

Of course they have to stay alive too.

[haypoint]

Originally Posted by gone-a-milkin

I agree that overfeeding and poor housing are huge factors for newbies.
Add in a crop of already stressed and exposed calves... well.

Survivability is one of those natural acts though. It is pretty difficult to propegate bloodlines that die in infancy, isnt it??

Dairy cows are not only selected for their milk production. Just look at the Select Sires stats.
They need to have somewhat agreeable temperments, decent feet, ease of calving, udder placement, shape, etc.
I would say that a lot of thought is put into their breeding.

Of course they have to stay alive too.

Yes, hard to propagate those that die in infancy. But I think you'll admit the Scottish Highlanders had more emphasis on calf survival and less on production of mass quantities of low fat milk.

In humans, women with "good birthin' hips" haven't been at the forefront of the selection process for 150 years and may contribute to the four fold increase in births that require Caesarean sections.

Whenever one set of criteria overshadows another, improvements are made in the focused set and the other regresses.

[springvalley]

I think the day has come that you know what has froze over, I AGREE with Haypoint. Enough said. > Thanks Marc

[sammyd]

There has always been calf loss. In the old stanchion barn the calves would be kept in the back corner pen with little or no ventilation, pneumonia was rampant.
Then the new calf barns came around in the 60's. Their ventilation could leave something to be desired as well. Calves generally did better but there was still loss.
Hutches have really changed a lot of that. I've put holstein calves out in hutches at 30 below and had them grow quite well.

Buying someones cull from a sales barn has always been a crap shoot for the casual farmer.

[SCRancher]

Originally Posted by springvalley

I feed my calves cows milk, I don`t believe in milk replacer. I think they are much healthier and get what they need from their Moms milk.

Same thing for human infants - they thrive better on breast milk from mom rather then on formula although we have children on formula down to a science more than we do cows obviously.

[KIT.S]

Newbies wait until they're off their feed and resting their nose on their hip.
Yeah, see, we Newbies don't even know what this means! Obviously it's not good, but I wouldn't recognize it as a problem. Fortunately, my first attempt at bottle calves has gone well. Or maybe I shouldn't say that, and they'll both be down when I get home tonight. We had diarreha, a mysterious cut on one's butt and weepy eyes, but I figure if I haven't killed them yet, they have a good chance.
Kit

[DWH Farm]

I think it has a bit to do with if they have been allowed colostrum from the mom also. We raised alot of bottle calves when I was a kid, my grandpa would only purchase them from a few farmers that he knew and when he knew that they had been able to nurse for a day. He would not buy any from the sale barn (and those were the days you could get 5-10 dollar bottle calves) because he did not know if they had had colostrum and because of everything that they were exposed to. We never had problems with any of the calves that we bought off the farm and that had been allowed to nurse. I think with the sale barn calves you have the combination of not knowing if they had colostrum (and in most cases probably not), the stress of being moved, and everything that they are exposed to in the sale barn. Not a good start.

[Elsbet]

We bought a calf from a dairy once years back. They kept calf with mom for 6 days so that he had the first milk. We brought him home at 6 days old and fed him milk replacer. He never had scours or any health issues at all. DH was raised on a farm that raised dairy replacement cattle, though, and I fuss over my critters as much as I do over my kids, so... We had some advantages.
My great-granddad always had calves in a corner stall in his stanchion barn, and they rarely died in infancy. He'd raise the bull calves for meat, and the females would grow to be beautiful milkers. It was not a scientific method he used, he just kept things pretty clean and airy, was good to his animals, and they thrived.

[Ken Scharabok]

Mom said she kept all six of us kids 'on the tit' for two weeks, then the milk bottle.

We lived on two dairy farms from when I was about 3-8. All I remember is there was a special calving stall and the cow and calf were kept together for the first three days. She then went back to the milk line and the calf raised on fresh cow milk until the next veal calf buyer came by.

IMHO, calves directly from a caring dairy farmer are worth whatever the extra cost might be.

[boiledfrog]

Originally Posted by haypoint

Just like most things in life, a little of this and a little of that.
50 years ago, most folks with cattle knew what they were doing. This web site is chock full of newbies. I think over feeding and poor housing kill most newbie's calves. Undoing those problems takes a lot of drugs. Experienced folk can see trouble coming. Newbies wait until they're off their feed and resting their nose on their hip.
When selecting traits for a dairy, surviveability isn't considered, milk production is. Ever notice the horses at the Kentucky Derby as they go into the chute? Those horses aren't bred for friendlyness. Any time a breeding program gets single minded, other traits suffer.

All this time I thought I was getting cows that hadn't gotten colostrum. So a half cup of 2% and redo their stalls with wall to wall and granite buckets. Maybe a touch color on the walls. Pipe in some classical music. Maybe some of that new age stuff. I bet aroma therapy would do the trick. Ya! Hibiscus that's got to be the ticket.

[haypoint]

Originally Posted by boiledfrog

All this time I thought I was getting cows that hadn't gotten . So a half cup of 2% and redo their stalls with wall to wall and granite buckets. Maybe a touch color on the walls. Pipe in some classical music. Maybe some of that new age stuff. I bet aroma therapy would do the trick. Ya! Hibiscus that's got to be the ticket.

Hey, that might work. Let us know how it turns out. Will be quite a change from the blue tarp draped over three pallets held together with baler twine, sometimes used for the first calf to die in your arms.

I thought the discussion already assumed the calves were getting colostrum. But remember, colostrum will protect the calf from bacteria that the cow was exposed to, but may not help with different strains found at the sale barn, the back seat of your suburban or the goat’s pen.

[Ken Scharabok]

Back when Billy Ray Cyrus' hit Achy, Breaky Heart was #1 a dairy farmer called into the station saying he kept a radio on in the barn and every time that song come on his cows would start bellowing. Radio station put a remote there and they did indeed.

[65284]

[QUOTE=haypoint;5331968]. Experienced folk can see trouble coming. Newbies wait until they're off their feed and resting their nose on their hip.QUOTE]

Yep, when they tuck that nose on their hip they've got dying on their mind. And usually do.

[myersfarm]

I guess to me it is the generation...some young people do not go to the trouble of feeding colotrom to the calfs they just catch and sell at the sale barns,,,,,were in the olden days people feed the calfs like they were going to keep them......I also feel a cow giving 10 gallons of milk the first time you milk her...her colostrum is not as good as a cow that gives 5 gallons first time.....and cows been breed up to make more milk so the colostrum also is not as good