First day
Taking care of a newborn calf
After successful births, newborn calves face a world full of potential infections and both climate-based and nutritional challenges. Proper management of the environment the calf is born into plays a key role in its future development and milk production.
- Newborn calves must be taken care of immediately after birth
- Make sure that the calf is dried to avoid heat loss
- Ensure protection from cold climate by providing adequate
amounts of dry bedding
- Dip the navel with an approved iodine solution
- Weigh the calf
- Give at least 4L (or 10% of BW) high quality colostrum within 2 hours of birth (see section on colostrum)
- Keep the environment draught-free
- Design and follow hygiene protocols to avoid disease transmission
- After difficult births, follow a special treatment routine for those calves
- Have clear monitoring routines in place
- Check the status and temperature of the newborn calf
every 2 hours
- Move the cow to an individual pen (according to farm protocol no later than 24 hours after birth)
- Identify problems in an early stage and take immediate action
- Wet calves
- Not immediately attending newborn calves
- Providing bad quality or insufficient amount of colostrum
- Leaving weak calves unattended
You can find out much more about the first day of life in the Calf Management booklet.
