Managing calves up to 4 days old

[Walwyn]

In a bid to manage workload during calving, I'm looking for any inspiration to managing milk for calves day 1-4. Calves are put in groups of 3 for 1st 4 days, giving 1st milking for 1st feed then take milk from next freshest cows for the next feeds up to 4 days. usually don't have to go past cows 2 DIM to have enough, rest of colostrum mob goes into yoghurt tank and fed ad lib to older calves in larger groups. From day 4+ the jobs easy. would like to separate the feeding of calves days 1-4 away from being tied to milking time, firstly to level out workload in the day and secondly to facilitate OAD milking.
Anybody doing anything they find works well or tried anything that was a disaster and avoid?

 

[Thompyd]

Maybe just buy one of those milk heaters and store the milk for the next feed in a sealed unit. Time it to come on when you want to feed the young ones for next feed. I feed the main batch of calves before milking in the evening and it does annoy me sometimes feeding the young calves after all finished up.

 

[aidan]

In a bid to manage workload during calving, I'm looking for any inspiration to managing milk for calves day 1-4. Calves are put in groups of 3 for 1st 4 days, giving 1st milking for 1st feed then take milk from next freshest cows for the next feeds up to 4 days. usually don't have to go past cows 2 DIM to have enough, rest of colostrum mob goes into yoghurt tank and fed ad lib to older calves in larger groups. From day 4+ the jobs easy. would like to separate the feeding of calves days 1-4 away from being tied to milking time, firstly to level out workload in the day and secondly to facilitate OAD milking.
Anybody doing anything they find works well or tried anything that was a disaster and avoid?

Whats your yougurt making procedure

 

[Walwyn]

Whats your yougurt making procedure

Fresh colostrum and live yoghurt (usually 2 bottles of actimel) into a thermos flask over night. Next day tip flask into a bucket with more fresh colostrum, cover and keep warm for another 12-24 hours. Use that bucket to seed the tank. Continue to add milk to the tank, agitate once or twice a day and never let it get empty.

 

[Cowski]

There’s just quite a bit of work with newborns whichever way you do it… put the work in there and calves generally do well, cut corners and you get problems. We’ve ended up using the perfect udder bags to pasturise and re-heat as needed but they are slow to fill and we wash and re-use as they are expensive, could do single use to save work. Use small ones for best colostrum on first feed and big ones for second colostrum for next 2-3 feeds then onto pasteurised whole milk and move to powder at about 2weeks. Snatch calves and bottle feed makes training on milk bar easier and quicker. Pens of 10 from day 1. If we cut corners on any of this we get problems, simple as that. Really fussy on keeping hygiene good, clean all equipment well and fussy about not letting colostrum sit around getting warm. The pasturiser system helps with this. Can normally follow any deaths or scours back to a break down in the protocol. This is for 700+ calves born in 10 weeks.

 

[aidan]

Fresh colostrum and live yoghurt (usually 2 bottles of actimel) into a thermos flask over night. Next day tip flask into a bucket with more fresh colostrum, cover and keep warm for another 12-24 hours. Use that bucket to seed the tank. Continue to add milk to the tank, agitate once or twice a day and never let it get empty.

Thanks

What benefits do you see

 

[aidan]

There’s just quite a bit of work with newborns whichever way you do it… put the work in there and calves generally do well, cut corners and you get problems. We’ve ended up using the perfect udder bags to pasturise and re-heat as needed but they are slow to fill and we wash and re-use as they are expensive, could do single use to save work. Use small ones for best colostrum on first feed and big ones for second colostrum for next 2-3 feeds then onto pasteurised whole milk and move to powder at about 2weeks. Snatch calves and bottle feed makes training on milk bar easier and quicker. Pens of 10 from day 1. If we cut corners on any of this we get problems, simple as that. Really fussy on keeping hygiene good, clean all equipment well and fussy about not letting colostrum sit around getting warm. The pasturiser system helps with this. Can normally follow any deaths or scours back to a break down in the protocol. This is for 700+ calves born in 10 weeks.

What exactly is snatch calves

Busy 7 weeks would you have 30 calve on a busy day

 

[Cowski]

What exactly is snatch calves

Busy 7 weeks would you have 30 calve on a busy day

We let the cow lick the calf dry but then remove the calf from the cow and bottle feed with pasteurised colostrum. Calf takes to the bottle really easily if you do that straight away then saves time on second feed, usually on the teat bar. Busy time but plenty of good staff who all know what they’re doing and really enjoy it especially when it goes well.

 

[jimmer]

Beef calves here as we are a flying herd
Cows and calves taken out once a day, all calves offered colostrum on milkbar feeder, the hungry drink the full ones sometimes take 24 hours to take any considerable volume
Feeders left full of freshest milkstrum for 4 or 5 days and pushed up twice a day to check they drink
Temperature of milk not even given a thought

Less than 1% illness or mortality post 24 hours

 

[jimmer]

Pens of 5 after initial ad lib period, often 8 or 9 on a five teater before

 

[box]

Why not keep some fresh colostrum in the fridge? That way you've always got some on hand to feed any calves that haven't already had a feed from mum.

The one's that have had a feed can wait until the morning.

I went away from a tank, have started using drums instead. Fresh colostrum is milked into a test bucket and kept seperate for anyone that needs it, all other colostrum cows are milked through the plant (up to 4 days) and bypassed into the drums (pre-plate cooler). This keeps a good, clean, steady supply of reasonably fresh colostrum on hand which can be fed to anything that's already had its first feed.

As the milk in the drums gets old, it can be mixed with fresh milk and fed to older calves.

Run about 6 drums for 270 cows and just keep cleaning and reusing them.

 

[Walwyn]

Thanks

What benefits do you see

Calves just bloom, no nutritional issues and stores what is technically unsaleable milk for use so no waste.

 

[Walwyn]

Beef calves here as we are a flying herd
Cows and calves taken out once a day, all calves offered colostrum on milkbar feeder, the hungry drink the full ones sometimes take 24 hours to take any considerable volume
Feeders left full of freshest milkstrum for 4 or 5 days and pushed up twice a day to check they drink
Temperature of milk not even given a thought

Less than 1% illness or mortality post 24 hours

That is the sort of thing I've been thinking about, worried about the temperature initially but probably unnecessarily as fed at ambient temp post 4 days anyway.

 

[Dead Rabbits]

I’m of a similar mind, need a less labor intensive way of getting the calf fed for the first 2-3 days that isn’t exactly tied to milking times. It looks like for us a milk taxi type thing would be the right move. Don’t appear to be available in the US.

Currently we keep all first milking colostrum and store in 20 liter containers. If there is excess to needs it’s frozen in perfect udder bags. We catch the second milking colostrum in buckets (labor intensive) and use that along with excess 1st milking colostrum to feed calves for a couple days in pens of 18 calves, 2 ten teat feeders. It’s typically caught the milking before it’s needed and stored in 5 gallon buckets which is heated in hot water the next feeding. Buckets are carried to the calf barn (labor intensive).

like you we find this has made a lot of difference to calf health and we treat bulls and heifers the same. Handling the milk in buckets isn’t ideal. And having to reheat is also time and labor intensive.

In your situation maybe go from groups of 3 to grouping of 8 or 18 something like that. It takes a certain kind of person to deal with it though. It’s largely done by one person with maybe some part time help from school kids and that person is sometimes expected to milk and do other things. Not many people will do that.

We get away with a lot of things though. Everything in the barn is fed with 2-4 feeders which aren’t cleaned between groups. We move calves in and out of pens all the time with no sanitation. There will be up to 1000+ calves through like 10 pens. Use 18inches if woodchip and it’s there from the first to last calf, no straw.