How to Care for Calves: Essential Calf Management Tips

Calving is the act of a cow giving birth to a calf. The three stages of calving (parturition) are cervical dilation, fetal expulsion (calving), and placental expulsion (afterbirth).

Early visual signs of calving include springing up (swelling of the udder, milk dripping from teats, mucus string from the vulva, and restlessness).

Signs in the weeks leading up to calving include udder development, relaxation and swelling of the vulva (springing), and a thick mucus discharge from the vulva. Relaxation of the pelvic ligaments and strutting of the teats may be observed in some cows.

As the calving season approaches, the cows will show typical signs that indicate parturition is imminent. Changes that are gradually seen include udder development or making the bag, and the relaxation and swelling of the vulva or springing. These indicate the cow is due to calve shortly.

The Calving Interval

This is the amount of time between the birth of one calf and the subsequent birth of the next calf from the same cow. An ideal calving interval for dairy cattle and beef cattle is one year. The 82 days that a cow is not in gestation are a key moment in the calving interval cycle of your herd.

For the first two weeks of life, calves receive most of their nutrition from milk. From four days of age, calves can be fed either whole milk, waste milk, reconstituted milk replacer, or fermented or fresh colostrum.

Forage sorghum, small grain, and grass-legume silages work well for wintering calves but are lower in energy than corn silage. It will take about 0.5 pounds of grain per 100 pounds of body weight per head daily in the ration for grass-legume silage or hay to give similar rates of gain to a full feed of corn silage.

Calf Rearing And Management Practices.

Calf rearing is the practice of looking after calves. Usually, it involves all the managerial practices carried out from the time a pregnant cow is steamed up until the time when a calf is weaned. Calf rearing is divided into 3 stages, namely preparation before calving, during calving, and after calving.

a). Before Calving

Cows are allowed to have a dry period (that is to say, a period when no milking is done) of six to eight weeks before giving birth. During this period, they are fed on a protein-rich ration. The process is called "steaming up" the animal.

Dry cows off at least five weeks before calving to ensure there is enough colostrum for the calf, and supplement straw-based diets with a high-protein feed 6-8 weeks before calving to help ensure colostrum is of good quality.

Steaming up has the following objectives:

The animal builds up its body in preparation for calving. Steaming up encourages the fetus to grow well; food provided increases persistence and, to a small extent, lengthens the peak of lactation.

Steaming up also leads to increased milk yield, and the milk is usually rich in colostrum, which is essential to young calves. This is the main reason for steaming up. Just before calving, dams should be looked after in a nurse paddock. The paddock should be planted with high-quality pasture.

Advantages of looking after dams in nurse paddocks:

In animal science, a dam is the mother of an animal. This term is usually used to refer to an animal kept for livestock, such as a cow or a sheep.

Close supervision during calving, as the paddocks are always near the farmer's house. If there are any problems associated with calving, they can easily be detected and appropriate measures taken in time.

Bringing cows to nurse paddocks enables them to acquire antibodies that build up resistance against diseases that attack calves. They pass on the immunity to the unborn calf.

Normally, cows that are about to calve are left in nurse paddocks. However, during the wet weather, they should be housed.

b). During Calving

The cow should be left to give birth by itself for about 5 hours after the onset of labor. If it fails to deliver by itself, it is advisable to call a veterinary officer to help the cow. The afterbirth is detached, and the mucus membrane surrounding the newly born calf is removed by scraping with a sharp knife or razor blade.

The umbilical cord is tied, and the navel is painted with disinfectants such as a 10 percent tincture of iodine or Dettol to kill bacteria that might make the wound septic. If the calf fails to breathe, artificial respiration must be carried out. This is done by removing the mucus membrane around the nose either by hand or by swinging the calf around while holding its rear legs.

The calf is then rubbed briskly (vigorously and quickly), and if necessary, dropped down gently from a height of half to three-quarters of a meter above the ground. Another method of rendering artificial breathing is inserting a grass straw in the nose and tickling it a bit.

The calf will sneeze, blowing the mucus out, thus unblocking the air passage. Breathing will start. Another technique is known as mouth-to-mouth respiration. This is regarded as the best method, and it involves blowing air into the lungs through the mouth and then pressing the ribs gently.

This is repeated until the calf starts breathing on its own.

c). After Calving

Calf pens: After delivery, the calf is taken to a well-ventilated and littered pen. Adequate ventilation is important because a lack of oxygen at this stage can lead to calf pneumonia. Litter can be sawdust or straw of finger millet, sorghum, or dry grasses like Hyparrhenia rufa. Single pens are usually 1.5 m x 1 m, and group pens can be 2.4 m x 1.5 m.

Old calves should be separated from young ones. The birth weight should be determined. It can be put in a gunny bag and then weighed.

Colostrum: The calf must be fed on colostrum, the first milk of the cow, for the first four days after birth.

The Management Practices Immediately After Calving.

Let the cow lick the calf or otherwise wipe and clean the mucous from the nostrils and body of the newborn. Licking stimulates the calf to stand up.

Keep both the cow and calf warm by providing dry and clean bedding materials. Cut the umbilical cord of the newborn calf with sterile scissors or a knife, leaving at least 1-2 inches from the navel area.

Cut the navel cord following the proper method and dip it in a tincture of iodine.

Feed the calf with an adequate quantity of colostrum.

Deworm the newly born calf within 10-14 days.

Uses of Colostrum for The Calf.

Colostrum provides high amounts of nutrients, as well as non-nutrient factors that promote the immune system and intestinal maturation of the calf.

The maturation and function of the neonatal intestine enable the calf to digest and absorb the nutrients provided by colostrum and milk.

It is a natural purgative and therefore helps the calf to get rid of sticky fecal matter called fecal meconium, which accumulates in the digestive tract.

It contains antibodies that temporarily impart resistance to the calf against certain infections, especially those infections that attack the alimentary canal, and to a small extent, the respiratory system. It is highly nutritious.

It contains high quantities of vitamin A (ten to twenty times as much vitamin A as in normal milk) and proteins.

Methods of Feeding The Calf After The First 4 Days of Birth

1. Natural or mother-raising, in which only one calf suckles milk from the dam, and the dam is not milked at all.
2. Multiple suckling, or the foster-mother or nurse-mother system, is a practice in which a calf suckles milk from its mother to obtain colostrum, and is subsequently fed on another cow's milk. This allows milk from the original mother to be sold or used for other purposes. Depending on the amount of milk they produce, foster mothers can care for up to four calves.
3. Bucket feeding, or artificial feeding, in which a calf is allowed to suckle its mother to get colostrum for the first four days, thereafter it is fed from a bucket. It is a good practice to give calves good feeds since bad feeding in the early stages can lead to poor performance later on in life. Beef calves are not usually provided with concentrates because it is uneconomical to do so.

Dairy calves should be fed on whole milk, milk equivalents, milk substitutes, and early weaning concentrates. Clean water free of parasites must be provided so that calves can drink whenever they want it.

Water requirements depend on the size of the animal and the season of the year. The bigger the calves the more water they require. More water is required in dry seasons than in wet ones. Castrate male calves between three and fourteen days after calving.

Other Key Practices to Note

1. Dehorning:

To prevent horn growth, there are various methods for removing horn buds at an early age. One way is by using spoon designers when the calf is 2 months old. Another method involves the use of a hot iron within 6 to 30 days after calving. Chemicals such as NaOH or KOH can also be used at the age of 3 to 14 days to remove horn buds.

Acceptable methods for disbudding calves of all breeds include the application of caustic paste or an electric/gas hot iron to destroy the horn-producing cells of calves less than eight weeks of age. Both methods require proper training and oversight so that disbudding is complete.

2. Identification:

Identification of animals is done so that proper records of animals can be kept. Secondly, it enables a farmer to trace his animals in case they are lost. Identification is done in various ways.

The most common is branding, whereby a hot iron is used to impress numbers or identification marks on the hide of the animal. Other methods are ear tagging, ear notching, and tattooing.

A picture of cattle tags

3. Deworming:

Young calves are sometimes attacked by internal worms such as liver flukes, roundworms, and tapeworms. These helminths may be found in most internal organs, but chiefly in the alimentary tract, the liver, and the lungs.

It is a good practice to drench calves with the recommended anti-helminthic as a preventative measure.

Deworming should be started from the first week of the calf. A single oral dose of 10 g piperazine adipate is recommended for the calves, preferably in the first week of life, to control neonatal ascariasis, especially in buffalo calves. Deworming should be done every month for the first 6 months, thereafter once in three months.

4 . Disease control:

Feeding high-quality calf milk replacer and concentrates. Free access to fresh water. A sound vaccination program. An essential part of disease prevention is to ensure adequate colostrum intake in the first two hours of life.

Good general hygiene is necessary to avoid diseases such as calf scours, calf pneumonia, and bronchitis. Of these diseases, calf scours claims many lives. It can be caused by parasites or by unhygienic conditions, for example, by using dirty utensils.

Scalding and disinfecting utensils are therefore essential to avoid most of these diseases. East Coast Fever is another disease of great concern in Africa. It is caused by a protozoan, Theileria parva, which is transmitted by brown ticks (Rhipicephalus appendiculatus).

The affected calf loses appetite, lymphatic glands swell, and in some cases, paralysis occurs before death. The mortality rate is 10 percent in indigenous cattle, but it may be as high as 90 percent in exotic ones.

It can be controlled by dipping or spraying animals with acaricides such as Gammatox.

5. Weaning:

This is the practice of separating calves from their mothers and stopping them from suckling. Types of weaning are early weaning and late weaning. In the case of early weaning, calves are fed on colostrum during the first four days after birth, and on the fifth day, early weaning pencils and a few concentrates are introduced.

Calves naturally wean themselves around ten months. On beef farms, calves are weaned when they are around six months old; for dairy farms, this happens just 24 hours after they are born.

From the 5th to the 24th day after birth, the calf is given 2.3 to 3.1 liters of whole milk or an equivalent amount of milk replacer per day, plus starter hay.

Water is provided freely. Feeding should be divided into three meals. At the age of 25 to 30 days, the amount of whole milk or milk replacer is reduced. The calf can be given between 1.4 and 1.8 liters of whole milk or an equivalent amount of milk replacer per day, plus hay.

The quantity of whole milk is reduced by 0.6 liters per day until the 35th day after delivery, when whole milk is removed from the ration; weaning is done on that day. At the time of weaning, a calf should be consuming about 0.5 kg of concentrate feed per day.

Thereafter, dairy calves are fed on hay and concentrate alone. Beef calves are not given concentrates but are fed on hay and then grazed on grass.

During the weaning process, calves are separated from their dam and often experience additional stressful and unfamiliar events, including vaccinations, castration, dehorning, and dietary and environmental changes.

Note: Feeding of hay should start at the age of 5 days and continue throughout. When calves are 4 to 6 months old, give them 0.9 to 1.8 kg of concentrates. Water should be provided freely. It is important not to wean calves abruptly; the quantity of milk should be reduced gradually. Generally, during late weaning, calves can be fed in three ways, namely on whole milk alone, on milk substitutes, and concentrates plus hay.

Conclusion

In conclusion, calving is a crucial process in the lifecycle of cows, and proper management practices are essential to ensure the health and well-being of both the cows and their calves. Early visual signs of calving, as well as changes in udder development and vulva relaxation, serve as indicators that parturition is approaching.

The calving interval, or the time between the birth of one calf and the subsequent birth of the same cow, plays a vital role in efficient herd management. Adequate nutrition, including milk, milk replacer, or colostrum, is crucial for the health and growth of young calves.

Calf rearing is a multi-stage process that involves preparation before calving, careful management during calving, and post-calving practices such as providing a well-ventilated environment and feeding colostrum. Additionally, practices like dehorning, identification, deworming, disease control, and proper weaning techniques contribute to the overall health and productivity of the calves.

By implementing these management practices, farmers can ensure the successful rearing of healthy calves, leading to a thriving and productive herd. Remember, proper management and care are essential for the well-being of your farm animals.