Spring is a very busy time for the livestock farmer when lambing and calving both get well underway, there are just so many jobs to do. It’s also a very intense time in terms of keeping up with changes in the industry and maintaining a competitive edge, as factors like improvements in cattle and dairy herd fertility and increases in the scale of calving operations mean that many livestock farmers struggle just to keep their heads above water.
In this article we’ll look at just a fraction of the jobs that have to be done that might let us appreciate the sheer complexity of caring for newborn calves.
Calving and calf rearing facilities
Calf rearing in an overcrowded building can have a negative impact on the health of the calf, with insufficient ventilation or inadequate lying space both being recipes for outbreaks of diseases such as pneumonia or scour. There are several things a farmer can do though, one thing is to increase the available space during the calving period, using as much barn space as possible for calving, tractors and farm machinery might be turfed out into the yard and priority given to the calves.
A canny farmer will have started the calving season by estimating the number of cows which are likely to calve in the first few weeks of the season, which is typically the busiest time. With the rough equation being that for a 100 cow herd with 80% expected to calve in the first few weeks, this will mean that eighty cows will calve, which is close to two a day.
The second thing the farmer will try to calculate is the number of calves that might be on the farm at the peak of the season. Keeping the calves in good health is critical as many of the first born calves will be the foundation stock of the next generation of the herd in a couple of years’ time, they are highly vulnerable to disease if their accommodation is not up to standard and the farmers have to estimate how much room they’ll need and try give them as much as possible.
A calf will spend up to 80% of its time lying down in the early stages of its life and they requires round 5 to 7 square feet of lying space each, they also need over 20 square feet of air space each so this amounts to a lot of space for a medium-to-large herd.
Modifying accommodation
Modifying existing barns and sheds for the calves is a cheap and cheerful option but the farmer has to be mindful that effluent needs to be collected and not leach out into the farmyard and then into watercourses resulting in pollution of watercourses and hefty fines from the Environment Agency.
Special pens, called ‘calf hutches’ can be made or bought, these can accommodate 6 to 8 calves depending on their size and will reduce pressure in the main calf shed during the busiest part of the season.
The building needs to be well ventilated and adequate quantities of straw applied as well, so as soon as the farmer can smell ammonia coming from the calf house he will have to change the bedding and put in fresh straw, this is very important to do straight away as it will cause breathing problems in the calves which can develop into more severe problems later in its life.
The air temperature ideally needs to be maintained at around 15C in the calf sheds for calves younger than 21 days of age, this can be difficult to achieve given the variable British spring weather, but maintaining such a temperature means that the calf will grow faster, as it uses most of its feed for growing rather than keeping up its body temperature.
very easily made from caged IBC totes
The ‘3 2 1 Rule’
Calves are born without antibodies and need to be given colostrum as soon as possible after birth, colostrum being the first milk developed by a mammal after giving birth and contains essential vitamins and probiotics to toughen up the newborn mammal.
The three, two, one rule has stood the test of time when giving calves colostrum, this is 3 litres of colostrum within 2 hours of birth from the first milking from the calf’s mother. The 3 litres is based on the fact that a calf receives 8.5% of it’s bodyweight from colostrum as its first feed and is based on an average birth weight of 35 kg.
Lighter weight calves can manage with slightly less and heavier calves will require slightly more but as basic rule it’s calculated as 3 litres. Some cows will produce better quality colostrum than others so testing colostrum with a device called a ‘refractometer’ is sometimes done, with a reading of 22% or greater on the refractometer being an indicator of good quality colostrum.
Some farmers will choose to stomach feed colostrum to calves, which is done by using a bottle or bag with a tube attached to it, in the interests of hygiene, a farmer who chooses to stomach tube his newborn calves with colostrum will use a different stomach tube bottle when administering electrolytes to sick calves and will mark the bottles with different coloured tape or paint.
Hopefully calving goes well this year (2024 as of writing), although early reports from Ireland are of an estimated 80% increase in birth defects including schistosomas, a defect where a calf’s hindquarters are twisted towards the head and its internal organs are on the outside, ankylosis, where joints are fixed in abnormal positions and atresia intestinal, a blockage of the intestine, have been reported.
Livestock farmers there are also on alert after the detection of both Schmallenburg and Bluetongue viruses, both midge-borne diseases causing birth defects in calves and lambs which could be very bad news for the livestock industry if they spread.
The Cow, by Robert Louis Stevenson
The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.
She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,
The pleasant light of day;
And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all the showers,
She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers
A B-H
Northwest Nature and History 