Caring for the extra - small calf

You look in the calving pen and barely see it.  Perhaps it is a set of twins (or triplets), or a small premature calf but we have all seen them – the “minis”.  They are cute but the phrase most used is “don’t get attached” because their mortality rate is quite high.  So what can we do to increase the odds of survival.  Having raised a few small calves, I have found a successful - if labour intensive- approach for keeping them going. 

For the small calf the risk of diarrhea and respiratory disease is higher, and they are more likely to suffer from dehydration due to their smaller blood volume.  For this reason, disease prevention is critical.  Additional challenges include their small stomachs which mean that they can not handle the larger meals that a bigger calf can and challenges with thermoregulation due to their small size and lower fat stores. For this reason, I have found that the principles of calf care, comfort, calories, cleanliness, are even more important.

Dexamethasone

The first step I recommend is to speak with your vet about your protocol for your next premature calf.  Depending on their preferences and experiences with your farm they will probably recommend a drug protocol to help stimulate the newborn calf.  This will likely include the use of dexamethasone, a steroid, which can help the breathing of underdeveloped lungs.  This should be administered on the first day of life and potentially repeated over the course of the next week.  This is dose dependent and should not be given without veterinary input.

Warmth

Once the calf is out and breathing, getting it dried off and warmed is critical due to their small body size and under-developed body.  Whether this is blankets, a calf warmer, or just burying them in straw, keeping them warm to avoid hypothermia is critical.  Remember a newborn calf has a thermoneutral zone of 15 to 25C and this will be much smaller for a mini calf.  Once dry, I am a fan of straw bedding so that the calf can thermoregulate by nestling down for warmth.  Additionally, in winter and cooler springs and falls, a jacket is necessary, I keep 3 or 4 small jackets on hand for these mini’s and smaller twins.  I found it a worthwhile investment as the regular size jackets will trap manure and urine resulting in a wet and chilled calf

The umbilical cord

Thoroughly dip navel, repeat daily for 3 days or until cord is completely dry.  Small calves have less reserve and may not be able to fight off infection.  They need all the help they can get, and wet navels are portals for infection. Male calves are worse for this as they do pee right there and small calves tend to not get up and move around as much, resulting increased risk of laying in wet spots (see blog for more navel information)

Colostrum:

Feed appropriate amount of colostrum.  Very small calves can not handle the recommended 4L a 90lb calf requires.  For example a 45lb calf will only require 2L. However, their high risk and low body reserves make successful passive transfer even more important.  Therefor, I will ideally feed a second meal with colostrum before switching to transition milk. Premature calves seem to have slower digestion in my experience, so time between first and second colostrum meals should be extended to at least 6-10 hours later, or hopefully when they pass meconium, which will indicate their intestinal tract is starting to work.  The second meal, if tube fed, should again be small  (1-2 L) to avoid over filling the calf.  Ideally, the calf will suckle the second feeding.

The next two weeks of meals

 I like bottle feeding when calves have a good suckle.   After the first feeding, volume consumed is not a huge focus for me.  Their bellies are small and it is hard to judge how much they can drink before they are full or tired.  I offer around 1-2 L  4-5 times a day and monitor to make sure they are either maintaining or increasing the volume consumed. A decrease in either of these may indicate illness and close examination of the calf is needed.   I will continue to offer small meals to the calf for 7-14 days depending on how small the calf is and if they show any signs of diarrhea. I won’t decrease the number of meals until they are consuming at least 2L/ meal and are healthy.  During this time, I will ensure that at least one meal is either transition milk or a colostrum/milk blend.  Both colostrum and transition milk are full of growth factors which will help with intestinal development, local immunity, and is higher fat, making it a denser meal for calves that need a little extra (blog). My gold standard would be two colostrum meals followed by 2-3 weeks of 4-5 meals per day of transition milk. This protocol can be exhausting for the calf raiser and colostrum supplies can be limited. However, if it can be accomplished, I see mini calves really thrive on this protocol.   

Two weeks to weaning

Once a calf is consuming around 8L/day, then I will start reducing the number of meals, dropping one meal a week until I match the daily meal rate of the other calves. During this time, I will monitor total intake to ensure we are not going backwards on intakes.  Once a small calf is drinking with the rest of the group I keep them on milk longer than 8 weeks.  My rationale is a calf born at 260 days will need at least an extra two weeks on milk to reach the same size as a calf born at 280 days. 

I find once these mini’s have passed 3-4 weeks of age these little calves can really grow and thrive, becoming little butterballs before shooting up. 

A warning.

 A calf that is born early or is unusually small may have birth defects which will not be apparent until later.  These are the heart breakers. They may fail to grow or suddenly die from an unseen condition after you have spent a lot of time and attention on them. Grow attached at your own risk.

Colostrum is super powerful! So why aren't we using it more?

Colostrum is hugely beneficial for dairy calves.  It provides a calorie dense, immunity forming meal that can set calves up for a lifetime of success.  However, a 2008 study found that 25% of both male and female dairy calves have failure of passive transfer, which means they did not receive adequate quantity and quality colostrum (Renaud et al 2020).  A recent article published in the Journal of Dairy Science looked at why this is happening and if benchmarking motivates producers to improve colostrum management (Wilson et al, 2023). What they found was that producers are motivated to improve their colostrum management if they see an opportunity to do so and are provided the support and information needed to make changes.  Some of the challenges identified that block change is financial, lack of labour, and lack of time.  This brings up two questions: 1) what is successful passive transfer and 2) if colostrum management needs improvement how can we accomplish it?

What is successful passive transfer?

The latest guidelines for successful passive transfer  take a gradient approach rather than a basic cut point of > 5.4% serum total protein (STP) (Table 1).  I think this makes a lot of sense and now aim for over 9.4% on Brix.

Table 1) Current guidelines for serum total protein (g/dl) and Brix (%) for successful passive transfer, based on Lomard et al, 2020.

How can we improve colostrum management and passive transfer scores?

Option 1) Feed 4L of colostrum within 4 hours of birth

Strengths: feeding 4L of colostrum within 4 hours of birth has been well established to improve rates of passive transfer, it is low cost and represents a small protocol change from 3L to 4L

Challenges:  getting the colostrum harvested within 4 hours if feeding dam to calf, limited labour during evening and nights can result in calves not getting colostrum in appointed times, cows not producing enough colostrum to feed calves, calves being unwilling to drink a full 4L resulting in the need for calves to be tube fed, which can be intimidating.

Option 2:  If colostrum volume is limited at 3L, feed colostrum by bottle.

It has been shown that calves fed 3L of colostrum by bottle have better absorption than calves fed 3L by tube feeder. *Successful passive transfer rates are still higher when feeding 4L of colostrum, regardless of bottle fed or tube fed**.

Strengths: can be implemented easily and cheaply.

Challenges: This difference disappears when feeding 4L. Getting colostrum into the calf quickly is always better than spreading the feeding of 3L over several hours if the calf will not voluntarily drink 3L.  When we break the first colostrum feeding into smaller multiple feedings we see absorption decrease dramatically and increased rates of failure of passive transfer. So this approach only works for calves that will drink 3L in one feeding within 4 hours of birth and colostrum availability is limited. 

Option 3: Check and correct cleanliness issues.

It has been shown that colostrum that is contaminated with bacteria has lower absorption. 

Strengths: This can be a low-cost area for easy improvement.  Taking a colostrum culture from the end of the nipple or tube used to feed the calves can give you a quick snapshot of the cleanliness of your colostrum collection from udder to calf.  If this is elevated, you can look back at the different steps of the collection and preparation process to find out where cleanliness can be improved.

Challenges: This is an area that needs to be constantly monitored to ensure that protocols are being followed.  Samples do need to be sent to a lab for culture or more advanced on farm culture techniques need to be followed.

Option 4: improve quality fed at first feeding by testing colostrum quality and only feeding top quality at first feeding

Strengths: Purchase of a Brix Refractometer is around 50 dollars and can be used to accurately categorize colostrum quality.  Thus, ensuring the best quality colostrum is fed to calves immediately after birth. This is most important for any excess colostrum that you are freezing to use for cows that do not produce much colostrum, why go to all the trouble for a poor-quality product.  Additionally, it can give you an opportunity to identify very good quality colostrum out of a second milking. This can be used as supplemental colostrum or if high enough quality (over 22% on Brix) as a first feeding for another calf.

Challenges This does not change the quality of colostrum you are harvesting.  It just allows you to ensure that you are giving the best.  

Option 5) Feeding transition milk:

while the traditional focus has been on the first colostrum feeding in the first 4 hours, which is the biggest bang for your buck, there can be additional absorption of colostrum within the first 24 hours and if not absorbed directly can provide local intestinal immunity and an energy boost.

Benefits: Feeding transition milk in the first week of life has been shown to improve health outcomes for calves with failure of passive transfer, improve gut development and improve recovery from diarrhea

Challenges: This can be challenging to manage to ensure that you are correctly identifying, storing, and warming the transition milk.  While there are major benefits to this it could be a labour and cost prohibitive approach.

References

Lombard, J., Urie, N, Garry, F., Godden, S., Quigley, J., Earleywine, T., McGuirk, S., Moore, D., Branan, M., Chamorro, M., Smith, G., Shivley, C., Catherman, D., Haines, D., Heinrichs, A.J., James, R., Maas, J., Sterner, K.2020. Consensus recommendations on calf and herd-level passive immunity in dairy calves in the United States.  J Dairy Sci. 103:7611-7624. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2019-17955

Renaud, D.L.,  Waalderbos, K.M., Beavers, L., Duffield T.F., Leslie K.E., Windeyer M.C. 2020. Risk factors associated with failed transfer of passive immunity in male and female dairy calves: A 2008 retrospective cross-sectional study.  J. Dairy Sci. 103-3521-3528      https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2019-17397

Wilson, D.J., Roche, S.M., Pempek, J.A., Having, G., Proudfoot, KL. Renaud, DL. 2023. How benchmarking motivates colostrum management practices on dairy farms: A realistic evaluation. J.Dairy Sci. 106.9200-9215   https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2023-23383

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Shoo Fly!

I hate flies.  Working with calves however means that flies are a fact of life.  Calves produce lots of liquid and lots of nutrients (ie poop) combine this with any spilled milk and grain - it is like a fly party.  Besides the fact that flies are annoying, they are also a great vector for disease -a single fly can carry an infective dose of cryptosporidium. Maggots can get into wounds, infected navels, and can grow in manure or tissue that is damaged by diarrhea.  For all these reasons, controlling flies is a major priority in the summer.  For me, this summer has been one of the easiest to manage for fly control due to a few changes.  

First thing.  I started early.  As soon I saw the first fly I started to implement fly control procedure. Since a female fly reaches maturity around 24 hours after hatching, will live for 15-30 days and lay up to 500 eggs in her lifetime catching it early is important.  This means that for every female fly, she could have produced hundreds of eggs that are just waiting to hatch and emerge as an even bigger problem.  If your fly population is already out of control and you spray the building or room with an insecticide to kill all the adult flies. The larvae will emerge, mature and lay more eggs, and you will have the same number of flies in another couple days.  For this reason, you will have to spray the area for 3-5 days to get a true reduction in fly numbers by killing immature flies before they have a chance to lay more larvae.   That’s why it is easier (and cheaper) to start early.

MS Schipper Dry Care Plus powder

 Previously I used a 3-step protocol that was effective in managing the fly population but was labour intensive.  This year, I added a new product - DryCare Plus, by MS Schippers. This powder that is dusted on the pen before bedding is a kaolin mineral product that is super absorbent.  To be honest, I was skeptical of the product having much impact on the flies and tried it primarily to reduce ammonia and moisture in the bedding.

I started using the powder in May and was thinking it was working (no data), I was impressed with it as a drying agent for calves with diarrhea (image).  However, I was not completely convinced it was worth the small cost and effort.  Then I noticed something strange, it was mid-July and our flies were not out of control.  I was not ordering a large volume of fly control products.  In fact, the fly products left over from the previous summer were just sitting on the shelf when they should have been completely used at least a week prior.   I also wasn’t seeing any maggots in the bedding, even when the pens were cleaned out after the calves were weaned.  In previous years, if you dug in the corner of pens you would often find evidence of maggots or their pupa case.  Now I don’t.  It is now September and while I still see flies, but I think most of them come into the calf barn and hutches from elsewhere on the farm and are very easily managed.   For me, the main downside of the DryCare Plus is remembering to apply it.  It is just a light dusting to the pen before bedding goes down and is not hard, but whenever you add a new step it takes time to change your habit.  In terms of cost, we have found regular application costs a lot less than using a whole bunch of fly products and seems to keep the bedding drier and fresher.  In the mean time, my war on flies has changed from pitched daily battle, to a nagging task that involves rolling out fresh fly tape 1 or 2 times a day, which is only step 1 of our old 3 step program.

The used roll of sticky tape - gross!

Our original protocol involved advancing through a 3-step protocol. In previous years, I would typically reach the 3rd stage in mid- to late- July and would keep the fly population in check but felt like I was spending most of my time dealing with fly control.  I can’t let my guard down and advancing the disgusting fly tape is probably the grossest part of my day.

---

Previous Protocol Pluses and Minuses

Step 1) The use of fly tape- Mr Sticky 1000 foot roll of sticky fly tape strung at a height of about 6 feet (or just taller than our tallest calf worker for any walkways).  Cheaper and more efficient than the little fly rolls, Mr Sticky tape can be easily refreshed within minutes by only one person.   The downside is rolling these up is kind of disgusting.  Trapped flies get squished and rubbed off at the turning points of the tape, causing piles of dead squishy flies and it seems you can not crank the tape without getting some fly guts on you. 

Also, the glue is STICKY.  I recommend gloves when changing the rolls.  The easiest is to tie the new roll to the end of the old roll. However, your gloves or hands will stick to them.  The key is either gloves (which will stick to the tape) or cleaning your hands with some paint thinner.  I keep some in the barn so I can remove any glue that gets on my hands, or scissors if when cutting the tape for a new roll.  This saves you from a day of sticking to EVERYTHING. 

Third downside, calves LOVE it.  Don’t ask me why but if you are unrolling it and it dips down low enough for a calf to reach, they will instantly put it in their mouth.  Seems like the first time they tasted flies and glue would be the last, but some calves can’t get enough of it, so don’t forget to keep it out of their reach.  

Finally, the tape catches everything, this includes moths, butterflies, and occasionally small birds.  So do not use if this an issue.

 These minor inconveniences aside, these are an amazing, pesticide free, method to control flies and represents one of the first and highly effective stages of our fly control method.

Step 2)   The second stage is the addition of fly bait stations, which need to be located on or near the ground where flies gather.  Fly’s will be lured to the bait stations where they will be killed by the insecticide. I was surprised at how many flies these traps get. However, they do have to be properly managed.   They can not be anywhere near animals are or anywhere it could get to water ways (drains, puddles, ground).  I use wallpaper trays and place them around calf pens, and between hutches as needed. Out in the hutches I nailed them to small pieces of 2x4’s to keep them from blowing away.   For the best effect sprinkling a small amount of fresh bait at least daily to make sure the smell to lure the flies in is strongest.  Depending on how many flies are killed, I find it best to clean out the traps of dead flies and unconsumed bait every 2-3 weeks.  In addition, since this work best at ground level, it seems something is always getting spilled in the trays (milk, bedding, water) so they will have to be carefully cleaned up and the residue discarded.  The downside of the fly bait is it is an insecticide so it can kill any insect and will get rid of any beneficial ones. 

Step 3) When flies can no longer be controlled by tape and bait, I add a residual fly spray to the rotation – Disvap V works great for me.  This is a very effective product that can be applied weekly to the areas around the calves (again avoiding applying to calves or feed directly).  If you identify where a large number of flies land, you can apply the fly spray to these areas and get really good kill rates.  This will need to be re-applied as needed, in heavy fly times it could be weekly.  The downside of this is the time it takes to apply, the cost, and like the fly bait it is an insecticide with the drawbacks associated with that.

Raising calves -both the best and the worst job

Calves can be stressful to raise, and they seem to sense when you are tight on time. Sometimes they just have to take a stroll through the barn when you have no help to catch them. Solution -wait for help - and laugh at them till help comes.

Well occasionally frustrating - exuberantly playing calves are fun to see and a sign of health

I keep a selection of funny pics on my phone of calves for the bad days when they are stressing me out. Well not a photographer (obviously) it does the trick!

I love calves.  They are adorable and funny.  Whether it is bouncing around the pen or looking at you with their tongue out they always make me laugh.  A barn full of healthy calves makes it a great day to be in the barn.  On the other hand, a sick calf can frustrate you, exhaust you and generally ruin your day or your week.   This is one of the hidden costs of disease.  We are often quick to quantify the cost of disease in terms of calf loss, decreased growth, treatments- but what about the human cost of disease?  A sick calf can easily result in spending anything from an extra 15 minutes a day to diagnose and appropriately intervene for something uncomplicated, to spending several hours on a single calf.  If multiple calves are sick this becomes challenging to manage and can add a major emotional and labour cost to calf raisers.

In the short term, calf raisers may experience everything from frustration, sadness, fatigue, a sense of failure, and this can leave them vulnerable to becoming ill themselves. This is especially high risk when dealing with diarrhea outbreaks as several pathogens can also cause disease in humans.  While in the short-term calf raisers can spend extra time, baby along a calf, the longer a problem goes on and the more calves that are sick - tough choices need to be made.  Do you spend hours helping calves drink electrolytes or providing fluid, or do you finally get some sleep, see your loved ones, and take care of yourself? This is challenging for calf raisers that are emotionally invested in their calves. They want to go the extra mile to help the calf, but if they lack the time or energy to assist the calves they also know that more calves will become sick or die.  This conflict can be devastating.  The longer a disease outbreaks occurs, the more severe the illness, the more animals impacted, and more death that occurs, the greater the physical and emotional burnout.  In the long-term, this results in a reluctance to enter the barn, more frustration, depression, sense of helplessness “well they will die anyway so why bother”, and can result in abnormal appearing normal or “calves just get sick and there is nothing you can do”.  This can result in everything from reduced attention and effort with the calves to quitting completely.  So how can we stop this?

First, ask for and offer help.  Sick calves need time.  Well some people are good at caring for calves, recognize illness and have the skills to care for them they are not superheroes.  When calves become ill and need care and time to recover, see if labour can be shifted around.  What regular tasks can be handled by someone else- feeding grain? cleaning equipment? bedding?  With standard protocols in place some of these simpler tasks can be done by less experienced workers while the calf raiser can focus on helping sick calves and preventing further disease spread.  Have a plan in place and support calf raisers so they can do their job and still meet their other basic commitments to their loved ones and themselves.  Second, prevention.  Invest in healthy calves and support ideas for improving how you raise calves.  Keep records, some “outbreaks” are predictable, be it seasonally or after a management change such as weaning.  Target prevention to these time periods and have supplies in place and extra tasks done ahead of time so that extra time can be spent with the calves either on prevention or treatment.  

After a disease outbreak is under control, take some time to rest and recover.  Talk about it with others.  As a farm community, we are not always good at talking about our emotions.  However, I have presented this topic at farm meetings many times and I always have someone come up to me afterwards and confess that they know exactly what I was talking about and express appreciating for bringing it up.   Knowing you are not alone does help.  My final advice to those going through this – it sucks.  However, you can only do as much as you can, so cut yourself some slack.  Then find the healthy bouncy calf and take some time to appreciate them and remind yourself why you have the best job – even if it is currently the worst. 

Sleep, lots and lots of sleep!

On average, young calves sleep 16 hours a day and will lay down an additional 2-5 hours, meaning that calves spend between 18 and 21 hours a day laying in their “beds”.  Well this may sound like the life, it does come with some unique management challenges.  Like fawns, calves are classified as a hider species. This means the dam will guide their calves to a hidden spot after birth where they will remain lying unless they are nursing. As they get older they will start to move around more, but will still spend much of their time either sleeping or eating.   As time budget, for a young calf, sleep and food are very important.  When calves are housed away from the dam on bedding, the surface they are lying on is also very important.  Ideally, we want to house them on bedding that is clean, dry, and allows the calves to be comfortable and maintain their body temperature.  

The cleanliness of calf bedding is very important for preventing navel infections, respiratory disease, and diarrhea- the top three calf killers and money drainers.  All penning, hutch surfaces, and floor surfaces need to be well cleaned between each calf to prevent the build up of bacteria and virus in the environment.  Bugs can spread up through bedding quickly, so making sure the surface being bedded is clean.

For hutches, this means moving the hutches between calves to allow the sun to reach the surface and help disinfect it. It may also include occasionally removing the soil and gravel from the area to remove accumulated manure and bugs.   For indoor housing, using a good cleaner to reduce the bio-film on the cement and penning is essential.  On our farm, we use Bio-Solve Plus® as our detergent to clean our floors and penning.  However, regardless of what detergent you use to clean - remember soap scum!  The scourge of showers everywhere, if a soap (detergent) dries to a surface it creates a film that is hard to remove.  This is not only a problem in showers, in your barns it will protect the bacteria from the water – undoing everything you tried to do.   So, remember, lather, rinse, and repeat…. between each calf!

  Once you have a clean base for the bedding, it is important to keep the bedding dry. If you look at basic physics, what goes in must come out.  As an industry we have started to feed more biologically appropriate volumes of milk.  Moving from 10% of body weight, ( 4 L/ day) up to 20% of body weight and in some cases as much as calves are willing to drink, which could exceed 14 L /day.  This has resulted in healthier, and better growing calves, but it also means more liquid passing through the calf.  This means more bedding is needed to keep the pens dry. Drainage is important. In 2012, there was a neat research project conducted by Camiloti and colleagues that showed that calves could detect a difference between sawdust that was 90% versus 78% dry matter, and clearly preferred the dryer sawdust.  Calves almost completely avoided sawdust that had 30% dry matter.  Indicating a clear preference for dryer surfaces.   Besides just preference for their own comfort, wet bedding will leach the energy from the calves in the winter, and on any cool summer nights. Remember a newborn calf’s thermoneutral zone is between  10C (50 F) and 25C (78F), while a one-month old calf’s thermoneutral zone is between 0 C (32F) and 25C (78F).  So, what is the solution?  One solution is to ensure good drainage.  Many experts support the use of deep gravel base under calf hutches to aid in drainage.  The downside to this is that as bedding and manure get mixed into the gravel, cleanliness becomes an issue and the gravel will need to be periodically replaced.  Alternatively, there is sloped cement as an option.  This makes cleaning easier but there are limits to drainage and additional bedding will be needed. 

Whichever drainage system is used, what is important is to evaluate the bedding calves are lying on and then adjust bedding practices to ensure your calves are kept dry.  Many of you have probably heard of the knee test which involves dropping to your knees and seeing if your knees get wet.  Well, if you are like me, there are a few issues with that test.  One, I don’t wear fabric outer-wear.  When working with calves the ability to clean and disinfect pants is a great benefit so I wear rubber pants that I can wash as I have yet to meet a calf that won’t try and get poop on you.  The second problem of the knee test is that even if I did wear cloth pants I don’t want to spend the day with wet knees – also a reason for the rubber pants! For this reason, the knee test just doesn’t get done.  However, there is a simple solution.  Paper-towel.  Put the paper towel down between you and the ground and test multiple pens/multiple areas.  This way you can get the benefit of seeing if your pens are dry without spending the day with manure stains.  As a general rule, if the paper is wet after 20 seconds then you need to either add bedding or change it out.  Remember calves with diarrhea put out a lot more liquid than normal so will need to be bedded more frequently.

The final thing to think about when considering how much calves sleep is how comfortable they are.  If calves can nestle down into bedding they are better protected from wind, and cold.  By nestling they can reduce their exposed surface area and better maintain their core body temperature (see previous blog).  Remember lots of fresh, clean and dry bedding is essential, with deep bedded straw representing our current gold standard.  By giving calves lots to drink, and lots of time and space to sleep, they are well on their way to being healthy and making you wealthy and very wise!

If you wisely want to keep up to date with my blogs, you can have them sent straight to your inbox.  Just send a quick email to a.stanton@nextgendairy.com with the subject: subscribe!

If you are curious about the study of calf preferences for bedding referred to in the main text, check out "Short communication: Effects of bedding quality on the lying behavior of dairy calves" by V. Camiloti, J. A. Fregonesi , M. A. G. von Keyserlingk , and D. M. Weary  in the Journal of Dairy Science. (95 :3380–3383 http://dx.doi.org/ 10.3168/jds.2011-5187)

When you spend 75 to 85%of your time laying down..

Sometimes you have to get creative

Thinking About Navels Part 3... Finding Navels

Are you wondering if you have an issue with navels? Until you get in the pen and examine the navels of your calves, you will not be able to answer that question.    Remember, navels that are left untreated will show up in three ways: a calf that is very sick and down, as a joint infection and/or respiratory disease, or a dead calf.  If identified and treated early, there is a better chance of successful treatment and a healthy calf.

Once you have gotten skilled at evaluating an individual calf, there is a need to start developing protocols to monitor the whole group.  Since navel infections are typically first seen between 3 and 14 days of age, we carefully monitor calves starting on day 3 of age with a combination of observing behaviours, close monitoring of high risk calves, and systematic evaluation.

One of the early behavioural signs of navel infection that I have noticed is a delay in learning to drink.  If a calf is not drinking completely unassisted by 3 days of age I make sure to examine their navels.  Often these are calves that are developing a navel infection.  Just like other illnesses, calves that start off strong drinkers but then begin to drink less or slower should also be checked. (Check out my earlier blog on what calf's drinking behavior can tell you I_am_so_hungry ) 

 Calves that are born with an unusually large navel or with a very short cord, are also flagged at birth to be monitored closely.  We try to examine the calves every two to three days until the navel is dry and well healed.  If a navel infection is found, the calves born on that day are also carefully checked since they share many risk factors, including calving pen cleanliness. 

For systemic evaluation, all calves that have not been evaluated by 7 days of age are checked for navel healing.  This quick evaluation can catch any calves that are not showing clinical signs and allow for prompt treatment.  Reported rates of navel infections range from 1.3% to 25%. Top goals for navel infections is to have less than 5% of calves affected.

Take homes for navel infections

Clean and dry environment is key for preventing navel infections

Dip navels to disinfect and speed drying of cord

If you don’t look for navel infections you will find them too late

How to check calves for signs of navel ill and possible causes of infection.

Individual calf records are important for all diseases monitoring.  Knowing the health history of individual calves helps make treatment decisions, while adding up the number of animals with negative health events over periods of time can help track your progress.  Knowing when your animals are at high risk for disease can help you tailor your prevention program for your farm. 

Thinking about navels... (Part 2) Navel Dip

One of the main recommendations for preventing navel infections is to use a navel dip to speed up navel drying and help kill bacteria that may be on the cord.  As I prepared for this series of articles on navel infections I did a little research into what the scientific literature had to say about this practice in terms of frequency and timing of dipping.  What I found was a whole bunch of inconsistencies and a lot more questions than answers.   

What was consistent? Different dips including 7% iodine tinctures, chlorehexidine based dips, and 10% trisodium citrate have similar efficacy provided they are dipped within 30 minutes of birth.   Iodine is the most common product for dipping navels, but availability is becoming limited due to increased regulations.   What we don’t know is the value of multiple applications and application methods. Until we have more information from scientific studies, we must rely on personal experiences and recommendations from experts in the field to guide our best practices.

Remember that navel prevention starts from the second they are born.  Make sure it is a clean environment, they get high quality, clean colostrum quickly, and then dip the navel! (Photo courtesy of depositphotos.com)

A few things that farmers, veterinarians and consultants seem to agree on – don’t reuse dip, apply immediately after birth, and make sure the entire cord is covered.  If the way that you apply the dip results in the excess dip flowing back into the container (i.e. teat dip cups) any bugs on the calf’s umbilical cord will be transferred to the container where it builds up, inactivating the dip.  So single use cups, sprays (make sure you spray the cord and not just around the cord), or pouring the dip directly from the container is the way to go.   We dip our calves 3 time in the first day (at birth, first and second feeding) with a 7% iodine solution to speed cord drying.  At the first dip after birth we typically pour the product onto the navel, while the second and third times, we typically spray as it is easier when the calf is standing.  We then closely monitor the calves for the first week, respraying calves that are at higher risk of developing navel infections once a day.  Calves at higher risk are ones with very short cords or large calves that typically have large umbilical cords.   This has been working for us - what works for you?

Thinking about navels...(Part 1)

I guess I am being optimistic in this cold weather but I am starting to prepare for summer and this led to thinking about navel infections. When the weather is hot, bacteria and flies are thriving, and everyone is busy with planting, harvesting, and the million other things that have to happen on a farm- and things can slip.  However, with navel infection it is definitely true that an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure. 

I was further reminded of that by a recent article by University of Guelph's Dr. Dave Renaud's recently published work in the Journal of Dairy Science on risk factors for death in veal calves.  Dr. Dave and colleagues found that calves that arrived at a veal facility with a navel infection were 2.4 times more likely to die in the first 21 days post arrival AND 1.8 times more likely to die during the remaining growing period relative to calves without navel infections.   

This was no surprise to me as when things go wrong and we have a calf with a navel infection, I know that she is in for a rough road.  Even when the infection is caught early and treated, I am likely to see that calf further down the road with respiratory disease.  This is why prevention is key.  

At birth, the umbilical cord provides direct access for bacteria into the body.  Risk factors for navel infections include cleanliness of calving area, cleanliness of calf pens,failure of passive transfer, a short umbilical cord (often a result of being delivered backwards or by c-section), and cross-sucking of navel.

So as we head into summer, it is important to remember all of these factors and keep management focused on prevention while keeping an eye out for new cases. 

Yuck!

Sorry for the nasty picture, but this is a great example of why navels must be carefully monitored - especially in the summer. 

A navel infection + flies = major problems! 

Bedding!

It's important that the first things a calf is exposed to is clean bedding and colostrum - not manure and bacteria - so lots of fresh of straw.  Even if you have to recruit some extra help!