Features

Creep feeding — providing supplemental feed to calves while they are still taking milk from the cow — is utilized by many producers. It adds to the nutrition they have available from milk and pasture, boosting preweaning weight gain and weaning weights. It also has the advantage of getting calves used to solid food before […] Read more

Calf survival is crucial to the economic success of a beef operation. But the process of ensuring healthy calves doesn’t start at calving. It actually begins nine months earlier at conception, and the first factor that affects it is the dam’s nutrition. Once gestation is complete, the environment (facilities) as well as the management of […] Read more

Recent work shows that early calf vaccination can create an immune response. This flies in the face of what we have long assumed, and it gives producers opportunities to protect calves from disease. For decades, veterinarians have been taught that young animals cannot be vaccinated as long as there are maternal antibodies circulating in the […] Read more