Expert advice on colostrum management and newborn best practices.
Our bimonthly publications will inform you about colostrum management practices, newborn care, industry trends, and more.
January 2025
Proper colostrum management is crucial for the health and survival of dairy goat kids. Colostrum provides essential nutrients and immune protection, which are vital for newborns, who are born without the natural immunity required to defend against environmental pathogens.
On farms across America, it is common practice to hand-deliver colostrum to newborn dairy calves. Although it varies amongst each operation if they choose to feed maternal colostrum or a colostrum product, each calf is getting a measured feeding of colostrum.
The summer heat can have a large impact on a dairy herd, but the impact on calves in particular is often overlooked. Heat stress can have long term effects on the future productivity of growing heifers. As calves feel the summer heat, help keep them comfortable by following a few simple cooling practices.
With the ever changing global limitation on antibiotic use and the increased need for more natural therapies, colostrum has been shown to be an effective alternative to restoring healthy stool and improve average daily gain in preweaned calves.
When considering treatment of scours, there are several options for prevention, supportive therapy and treatment that do not involve reaching for the bottle of antibiotics. By identifying the weaknesses in the chain of disease, we can avoid calfhood scours altogether
There’s no better time than summertime, but the stress from the heat can take it’s tole on pregnant cows, and their calves. The effects last long into the pre-weaning period, so care needs to be taken to avoid heat stress in the animals that are the future generation of the herd.
-June 25th, 2025 | 5:00 pm CST
