Calf rearing

Calves are very delicate animals – they are not small cows in regard to welfare.

• Their rearing system can have a big effect on subsequent behaviour.
• It’s vital that calf gets 2litres of colostrum (from dam or other newly-calved cow) before 6 hours old). Keep some colostrum in the freezer for emergencies.
• There is a wide range of calf rearing systems. The main aim is to give the calf a good start and encourage it to become a ruminant as soon as possible.
• Most calves are now reared using communal systems with a "calfeteria". They have individual teats but run in a group environment.
• Initially a calf wants to push up when sucking and bunts to stimulate milk flow from the udder.
• To get the calf to suck on a calfeteria, let it suck your fingers and then lead it to teat to suck. Hold its head gently on the teat for a few seconds once on the teat.
• If you use a bucket, let the calf suck your fingers and then press its head down into the bucket while sucking. Withdraw your fingers and keep its head in bucket. Initially it will gulp milk and choke – let it up for air!
• Calves often want to continue suckling after their milk supply is finished. This "suckling reflex" encourages them to suck the ears, navels and teats of other calves. It can lead to problems so this vice must be discouraged.
• Calves that suck other’s teats may continue into adulthood. How to stop it?
  • Make the calves work harder for their feed so suckling urge runs out.
  • Tie them up after suckling till their mouths are dry.
  • Separate out the culprits as they will teach others.
  • Fit irritant device in the nose of sucker so others won’t let them suck.
  • Provide dry palatable feed.
• A calf is born with a large abomasum (gastric stomach) and offering fibrous feed from birth (hay and meal) will encourage its rumen to grow and develop. This reduces the need for milk and lowers feeding costs.
• A combination of wet and cold is the biggest killer of young calves or is the reason for poor performance.
• Calves at pasture need shelter, either natural or artificial.

Fostering new calves on to nurse cows

• Cows vary in maternal instinct. If a cow is too determined, don’t bother to foster calves on her as it will cost you too much time. She’ll associate you with the calf and will not let it suck when you are not there or unless she is not bailed up.
• The easiest way is to have the calf to be fostered ready at birth, and cover it with the birth fluids from the cow. Make sure she licks and mothers both calves.
• You can try the same trick using odours such as neatsfoot oil or perfume. They don’t work too well, and certainly not as well as birth fluid. The oil will get the cow to at least lick the calf, and this may trigger maternal acceptance. The perfume may put her off. Cows’ preferences in perfume are not known!
• Remove her own calf at birth before she has smelled and licked it, and introduce the fostered calf (or calves) after rubbing them in birth fluids (collected in a bucket) or with the afterbirth.
• Blindfold the cow while the alien calves are introduced to her.
• Remove the cow’s own calf after 2-3 days, and bail her up tight with some good strong alien hungry calves. Make sure she cannot get round to bunt them (dehorn the cow) and that she cannot kick them too violently.
• While letting her suckle her own calf, introduce the alien calf and teach it to suck through her back legs (the cow’s blind spot). It will end up with a dung cap but at least it will be well fed!
• Put a leather dog collar on the cow’s own calf and the alien one, and tie them together with a short length of chain containing a swivel. When the cow lets her calf suck, the foster one will suck too, and the cow will hopefully get used to having both.
• If her own calf has died, skin the dead calf and tie it over the new calf until she lets it suckle. This will vary from a day or so up to a week or more, when the skin starts to stink! This is mainly used in a beef herd where getting a cow in daily to suckle a calf is not practical.
• A vaginal douche with iodine solution (5ml of veterinary iodine in 250ml water) used to be practiced. This was sufficient to treat three cows and caused irritation of the vagina, which seemed to stimulate straining and maternal instincts. It is not a welfare-friendly method so consult a veterinarian before use.

Calf housing

• In NZ calves are only housed for a very short time, as we want them to get outside and start grazing as early as possible to reduce costs.
• Housed calves often suck the sides of the building and woodwork so it’s important to make sure they cannot reach treated timber, old doors or the sides of the shed painted with old lead paint, and they cannot eat treated shavings used for bedding.
• Veal calves are kept in narrow crates in Europe but these are banned in UK and not used in NZ.
• The bobby calf pen is the main concern in NZ, but there are clear size specifications for this in the Welfare Code for Bobby Calves.

The bobby calf

• The bobby calf trade is a very important source of export income for dairy farmers.
• Bobby calves go for high quality veal to the US. The calf’s stomach (vel) is used for the enzyme rennet used in the cheese industry.
• The Bobby Calf Code of Welfare is well recognised by the industry.
• A "bobby calf" must:
  • Be at least four days old.
  • Have a dry withered navel.
  • Have worn feet pads proving it has stood up.
  • Be healthy and free of disease and injury.
  • Have been fed only on milk.
• There is concern now to remove calf pens from the roadside to inside the farm gate to prevent tourist concerns.
• Bruising, skin damage and navel infection are the main causes of wastage.
• Calves must be electrically stunned and stuck (bled) immediately.
• The main concern is transport. The code says they must reach destination within 8 hours of collection.
• This is often not achieved as meat works move them around to keep killing chains in business.
• Premature calves used for blood harvesting
• These are calves born before time or induced (aborted).
• They have not had colostrum and so have not ingested any antibodies.
• Their blood is used for the special pharmaceutical export market.
• There are very tight regulations on their transport, welfare and slaughter.

Weaning

• Weaning is usually defined as removing the calf from liquids and put on to solid feed. But now dairy calves are offered solid feed from birth.
• So weaning for dairy calves is best defined in terms of weight rather than an age. Dairy calves are generally weaned when they are eating at least 1kg of meal/day.
• Single-suckled beef calves are weaned in autumn when they are generally about 6 months old. Here they do wean more on age than weight as it’s a seasonal practice.
• Weaning is a gradual process in dairy calves as they move from milk to meal, then from indoor pens to outside an on to pasture.
• In suckling beef calves, weaning is much more of a shock as it all happens on one day. It’s usually accompanied by a few days of roaring by both calf and cow to get back together.
• They are usually separated by 2-3 well-fenced paddocks away from the house, as the stress and noise can go on for up to a week.