Maintain best practise calf rearing

Dr Michael Marsden, head of technical at Trident Feeds, said that during the early stages of a calf’s life, it’s able to convert feed into a live weight gain of approximately 3:1.

“This is easily the most efficient time in their lives and producers should, therefore, be fully utilising the potential of early growth and the long term production benefits, which includes encouraging the rumen to develop correctly so feeds are fermented and nutrients absorbed efficiently," he argued.

“For this reason, it’s extremely important that they receive adequate measures of quality assessed colostrum within the first few hours of life. Ideally the calf will consume four to six litres in the 24 hours, either naturally or bottled.

“Producers then have to make the decision as to whether they continue to feed the calf on cow’s milk, or preferably when rearing dairy heifers, on dedicated replacement milk powder, until weaning.”

No matter what milk system the unit chooses, young calves should have access to fresh creep feed and clean water to encourage rumen development.

He added: "The available creep feed should be highly palatable to encourage intake, rich in highly digestible fibre sources such as sugar beet feed, coupled with clean dust-free chopped straw to facilitate rumen development and high in quality protein, with crude protein content of at least 18%.

“With energy values of 12.5 ME/kg DM from mostly slow but, highly digestible fibre, sugar beet feed is a perfect accompaniment to starchy cereals,” he added.

Dr Marsden concluded: "While there’s no single system when it comes to calf rearing, the principles of consistency, cleanliness and observation should be followed as tightly as possible, in order to operate efficiently."