Category Archives: Uncategorized

While correlation does not always equal causation, when it comes to sanitation and scours, it does! We have seen it time and time again, lack of sanitation = scours in calves.  The challenging thing is, sanitation isn’t always easy to do. Whether that’s because of cold weather, lack of time, lack of protocols, or thinkingContinue reading “Scours and Sanitation”

Something that doesn’t get considered often enough when designing and modifying calf barns, and establishing sanitation protocols is the disease pressure of the pen or building. Calves are especially sensitive to this disease pressure, which is why individual housing creates calves that appear “healthier” in the first couple months of life. While there is noContinue reading “Calves, Group Housing Considerations – Disease Pressure”

After our in depth discussion of the maternity pen, colostrum management, and the vital requirement of a clean place for the newborn calf to land, we are going to move to other newborn (first 24 hours of life) protocols that will help set your calves up for success later down the line. Navels. You probablyContinue reading “Does Your Navel Dip Have You Covered?”

You sent in samples of your colostrum or you set up your own colostrum and milk testing lab at your farm. You are looking at the results and find out they are higher than Snoop Dog, now what? Step one is to zero in on where the issue is coming from, we talked briefly aboutContinue reading “Troubleshooting Colostrum Cleanliness”

Last month we talked about how essential it is to calf success to have clean colostrum! In this post we are going to show you how to set up your very own lab at home so you can make sure your counts are staying low and your calves are getting the highest quality colostrum possible.Continue reading “At Home Lab for Milk & Colostrum?”

On month two of our 4 Q’s of colostrum management, we covered quality, but only part of what it means to have quality colostrum. The first part of quality includes having adequate levels of IgG’s to help ensure successful passive transfer in newborn calves. There is another part of that, which we deem just asContinue reading “4 Q’s of Colostrum Management, sQueaky Clean”

We all know the importance of a clean maternity pen and colostrum clean feeding equipment, but what does that really mean? What does that look like on-farm, not just a perfect protocol sheet? Over the next few months we are going to take a journey through the life of a newborn calf and stop atContinue reading “Day One, Cleaning, and Calf Performance”

Knowing what to do in the maternity pen is one thing, but actually doing it, and convincing others to do it is another. To follow up on our last post about what a clean maternity pen environment should look like, in this post we are going to talk about how to get it there andContinue reading “Get your Maternity Pen People on Board”

There are many things to keep in mind when the heat and humidity ramp up and settle in. The cool nights of early summer are gone and now it’s just HOT. The heat can be a positive thing, after all, a calf’s thermal neutral zone is between 50F-80F, making it less stressful on young calvesContinue reading “Beat the Heat & the Bacteria”