References
Calving pen management
Abstract
Calving is one of the most stressful events to occur during the production cycle in dairy cows, and the environment in which this occurs can significantly impact the health of the neonatal calf. The incidence of enteric and respiratory disease in young calves can be reduced by managing this environment better, limiting contamination and resultant infection pressure. The environment in which calves were managed from birth onwards was observed and scored on 66 dairy farms in Northern Ireland over a 3 week period. Assessments were made on hygiene factors such as stocking density, presence of sick cows, bedding frequency, cleaning frequency, ease of cleaning and hygiene scoring. This study highlights that, despite the clear need for managing hygiene around the time of birth, hygiene in the calving pen is often an area that producers do not focus on improving in order to efficiently rear a healthy, productive and robust dairy cow.
With the average cost of rearing a dairy heifer estimated at £1819 (Boulton et al, 2017) and a heifer only becoming a profitable animal midway through her second lactation (Hanks and Kossaibati, 2018), it is imperative that there is a strong focus on raising a resilient heifer from the moment she is born. Of the 3.3 million cattle on-farm deaths registered with the national British Cattle Movement Service between 2011 and 2018, 25% of these occurred within the first 3 months of life with dairy calves experiencing higher on-farm mortality rates during this time frame than non-dairy (beef) calves at 6.00 and 2.86% respectively (Hyde et al, 2020).
In the UK the most common cause of calf mortality in calves under 1 month old is cryptosporidiosis (Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA), 2022), which can often be traced back to shedding of cryptosporidia oocysts in the calving pen environment (Garber et al, 1994). The link between calving pen hygiene and diarrhoea and the need for this crucial stage to be closely monitored and managed in order to successfully rear a dairy heifer has been covered by Mee (2008). Good calving pen hygiene is an essential target for minimising perinatal transfer of other enteric diseases such as Johne's disease (Radia et al, 2013) and respiratory disease pathogens like Mycoplasma bovis (Maunsell et al, 2011). Klein-Jöbstl et al (2014) describe a significant negative relationship in the likelihood of calves getting diarrhoea and the frequency of cleaning the calving pen from a study of 100 Austrian dairy units.
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