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Calf Management Practices And Health Management

Raising healthy calves is an important part of your dairy farm. This is estimated to cost about 15% of the total cost of producing milk. Hence, it is important that you use the right practices to improve the health of your calves. Because it affects your resilience and profitability in several ways.

The profitability of your dairy products will depend on the reproductive efficiency of your livestock. In other words, your dairy business will be profitable as long as you can raise enough healthy weaned calves. To get more information about the calf health management visit https://www.feedworks.com.au/best-calf-additive-for-health-and-growth/

calf health

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What (newborn) problems can you expect?

Hypothermia: The body temperature of the calf drops to 102 degrees in the first 15 to 30 minutes after birth. If the temperature continues to drop below that, hypothermia will develop even if you keep the environment warm.

Hypoxemia: Low blood oxygen levels occur when the respiratory or circulatory system slowly adjusts to itself at birth.

Acidosis: Low levels of oxygen and body fluids that the calf has at birth causes acidosis and is usually not corrected until the calf breathes outside. This only gets worse for the calf that has been compromised at birth.

Hypoglycemia: Low blood sugar is rare and occurs after the first meal of colostrum, but can sometimes be life-threatening.

Poor colostrum transfer (or FTP – failure to transfer passive immunity): Delayed or decreased colostrum consumption leads to decreased intestinal absorption and the calf is exposed to poor immunoglobulin protection.

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