Calf health from birth to weaning

The article about calf health is of paramount importance for the breeders not the traders. this is true that todays calf is the cow of tomorrow. To me the calf care starts from the day of conception and then series of steps start. The author has addressed very rightly the point of cost and major cost is treatment . It will be wonderful if this cost is minimized through better management. another aspect of cost reduction is "NON STOP GROWTH" of the calf which on one side reduces the treatment expenses while on the other it pays premium to the farmer with better weight gain. Author deserves solute for the beautiful article

I found this article very important!! I faced majority of the mentioned problems starting from 2000 during my stay at Government Ranch in Ethiopia. I will try to include these management interventions in preparation of working manuals in local languages for small and large-scale dairy farmers. In my country, there are many calf health and managemet problmes that need research and development interventions.Hence, i appreciate the authors for their contribution on calf health issues which one of the chalenge of dairy producers..

This is an informative and really important article in the area of calf health management. New born calf health management is a critical issue for economically viable dairy or beef farming. This article shows some potential ways for controlling diseases. So I think it will be helpful for veterinarian, calf health management personnel. I would like to thank the authors for their contribution.

Dear, I. Lorenz and friends:

I would like to thank you for this good article about calf health, but; I have got some questions about it.

1- Is there any contradiction between the feeding to calf with 3 L. Colostrums within 2 hours of birth and the feeding to calf in one-feed a day due to a high risk of overloading his abomasums.

2- After executing which of processes, the calf should be removed immediately from his dam.

3- I don’t think it would be the right thing to wait for the calf to eat the bedding for developing of his ruminal epithelium instead to offer the calf a good quality chopped hay to be separated from the coarse-textured concentrate mix. Because, it is not enough 2mm of coarseness of the concentrate feed to improve the growth of the muscle layers in the Rumen wall.

Best regards, 

Dr Abdulhadi Basaran
Livestock, Veterinarian