Episode 27: Calf Chronicles: Cow and Calf Rearing with Dr. Brad Heins

On this episode of the Maine Farmcast, Dr. Glenda Pereira, Assistant Extension Professor and State Dairy Specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, has a conversation with Dr. Brad Heins, Professor of Dairy Management at the University of Minnesota. Today’s conversation is about pre-weaned calf rearing options for dairy producers. Dr. Heins grew up in Minnesota and obtained his Animal Science degrees at the University of Minnesota. Based in West Central Minnesota, Dr. Heins conducts research on topics including organic dairy production, crossbreeding in dairy cattle, calf rearing, precision technology, and renewable energy systems.

Episode Resources

Automated Transcript

Glenda Pereira: 00:23

Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. This is your host, Dr. Glenda Pereira, an assistant extension professor and dairy specialist at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, as well as an assistant professor within the School of Food and Agriculture. Today, we have the return guest is what we would call you, Brad. And today, the topic that we’re gonna be talking about is regarding cow calf rearing.

Glenda Pereira: 00:51

So in addition to the many projects that you’ve been doing out at the West Central Research and Outreach Center, One of those and and some of the research you’ve been doing for numerous years now has been regarding calf housing. And so can you share a little bit about so you we we we’ve been familiar with your work. You’ve done an introduction in another episode, and, you know, folks can refer listeners can refer to that. But can you sort of give us a bit of background on why your team chose to pursue a project on cow calf rearing.

Brad Heins: 01:28

Thanks for having me back, Glenda. I appreciate it. We’ve done lots of, research on on calves here. And since I actually started here looking at different ways to raise calves, we’ve looked at different weaning ages and housing systems and and you name it. But this sort of idea really came from farmers.

Brad Heins: 01:46

You know? There were farmers that were raising calves on cows, and it’s a hot topic in the dairy industry whether you’re, you know, grazing organic or conventional. You know, why why do we why do we take calves away from cows is is a big question. Well, there were some farms that we’re working with that were raising calves on cows and as a method of raising their calves. And so we sort of ventured into that.

Brad Heins: 02:15

You know, I had that idea in 2019. That’s a long time ago already. Almost 5 years ago to try different housing systems, raising calves on cows and comparing them to individually housed calves, pair housed calves, and group housed calves. So we’ve compared all the methods to to try and raise it except for an auto feeder, but we we have some auto feeder stuff too happening.

Glenda Pereira: 02:44

Right. So this project specifically not only looked at cow and calf rearing, but it looked to compare different type of calf housing systems and and sort of assess a couple of different metrics. Right? So you looked at growth of calves, obviously, so looking at average daily gains, comparing all of these management systems, as well as health scores and a couple of other measures. So can you sort of brush us up on, you know, sort let let’s start at the beginning.

Glenda Pereira: 03:20

So give us a literature review of what data existed for cow and calf rearing. You you know, you’re right. I get you know, some folks ask me, you know, what’s what’s the guidelines or recommendations for cow calf rearing in the dairy industry? Because it’s not traditionally what we have done. Right?

Glenda Pereira: 03:40

That’s a beef model, raising calves on cows. That’s and maybe we could have started there. We we have a lot to learn from the beef industry regarding raising calves on dams.

Brad Heins: 03:52

Right. You know, there there was a lot of, you know, beef beef farmers have done it for many years, you know, raising calves on cows. This is how how that system works, and it it’s done well, you know, because they’re not milking those cows. For us, it’s a little bit different because we’re trying to get milk from the cows and raise calves at the same time. And so it it became a you know, how how do we do this?

Brad Heins: 04:19

You know, there’s a lot of, you know, farm some farms that I visited, their calves were just in amongst their milking cows. So you you know, I remember going to one farm, and they had, you know, a 100 calves running with a 100 milking cows, and, you know, they got went into their own little pen when they came up for milking, but this, you know, as far milk these cows, I’ve seen other farms use what what they call nanny cows where, you know, you have a designated few cows that are raising all of the calves. Sometimes a cow may have, you know, 2 calves that she’s raising, so it it can be, you know, an interesting way to do that. You know? So we we really decided that, you know, we were gonna kind of every cow was gonna raise her own calf, at least the ones that we had in that system and, you know, milk those cows twice a day and see what happened based on milk production and, you know, kinda look at it from from that standpoint instead of sort of a a nanny cow standpoint.

Brad Heins: 05:22

I I didn’t you know, we could have done that, but I guess we decided not to do that and kind of, look at our our own way of of raising those calves. So that’s what we ended up doing.

Glenda Pereira: 05:35

Walk us through you know, paint a picture of what is how did you raise those calves on cows? You know, what type of facilities? Things of that nature.

Brad Heins: 05:47

You know, so, basically, from the beginning. So I kinda walk you through, you know, if we if we had, you know, dry cows were together, we had our cows, you know, we so we vaccinate all of our dry cows for, you know, scours, things like that. So that, you know, it starts with dry cows, dry cow nutrition, having good mineral program with your dry cows to be able to raise good calves. But then when we started, we, you know, these cows calved in, you know, a group pen, then we sort of sep the the ones that we were gonna raise on the on the cow, we separated them off into a pen by themselves, for about 3 days, just so the calf and the cow could have bonding time. So there wasn’t any you know, the cow was just gonna walk away and forget about her calf.

Brad Heins: 06:40

So we we had this sort of bonding time that we could utilize to make sure that the calf was gonna drink colostrum from the cow. We didn’t have any health issues and those type of things. So that’s sort of important is to sort of establish that bonding time Right. Right. With the calf and the cow to, you know, make sure that the calf gets started off on a on a good foot.

Glenda Pereira: 07:06

Right. So there was this transition period for the cow and the calf, and then you had them in a a hoop barn, if if I recall. So a space where there is good ventilation because we’re share you know, the space is now cows and calves. So, you know, if ventilation was critical for cows and calves separately, you you know, the the the system still needs to have good ventilation because, you know, they’re co they’re coexisting in this space. And then you had a creep feeder, type of setup so that when there was this grouping of cows and calves in the same pen after the transition period, bonding time, Those calves could also have some, like, space where they didn’t have, those, intervening because if I recall, again, you had starter grain in that space.

Glenda Pereira: 08:04

Is that correct?

Brad Heins: 08:06

Yes. So, you know, we we kind of raise these in 2 different ways depending on our season. So I can so if we think about wintertime, we’ll talk about winter first. We had they were in a hoop barn, You know? So it was kind of a hoop structure.

Brad Heins: 08:20

All the calves and cows were together. We used deep bedded straw. We had about 25 cows roughly and so and calves together, so 50 animals total in in that we were raising at a certain point in a in a hoop barn type structure. We we separated off a small, yeah, kind of creep feed area so the calves could just go in it by themselves where they could get grain. You know, we didn’t want the cows eating a whole bunch of calf grain, so they they could go in there and and have grain and provide a sort of resting area for the calves.

Brad Heins: 08:55

You know, sometimes the calves just wanted to get away from all the cows and the moms and stuff too, so they would go in there and lay by themselves in this creep feed area, and and we’re we’re able to do that. That’s sort of the wintertime. The summertime, it was different. We had them on pasture, so we put them out on grass with the cows. So we had, you know, 25 cows raising their calves on pasture, and we had a separate little creep area out there again for, the calves could go and and get some grain at any point during the day.

Brad Heins: 09:30

So it was kind of different for the the 2 different systems and and how we raised it. But, yeah, it it worked both ways. We

Glenda Pereira: 09:39

Yeah.

Brad Heins: 09:40

Had good calves no matter which way we did it.

Glenda Pereira: 09:44

And then so what was milking like?

Brad Heins: 09:49

Chaotic. Chaotic.

Glenda Pereira: 09:50

Loud.

Brad Heins: 09:52

Yeah. Well, it so we when we really when I started this project, we started pretty small. I had, like, 15. I wanted to see what was what would happen. We I actually started it during, you know, spring 2020 during COVID lockdowns.

Brad Heins: 10:09

I was allowed to continue this project, so I I did it by myself. But we we brought the calves up with the cows during milking, and that turned into a rodeo because I had calves running everywhere and calves in the holding area and calves wanting to go through the milking parlor. And so it kinda became a a disaster wanting to do that all the time. So we learned from that, that that’s not what we wanted to do. Some people calves come up for milking, and they get separated off, things like that.

Brad Heins: 10:45

So what you know, in the wintertime, we separated them off before they came to be milked. The calves stayed in their little creep area, and we brought the cows to milk. The barn was really close to the milking parlor, so they didn’t go far. When they were on pasture, I’m we the calves came up with the cows to the milking parlor because trying to sort calves and cows on pasture was a total Right. Rodeo disaster.

Brad Heins: 11:12

But we sorted them on our holding area, and then when mom came out of the parlor, then the calves were there waiting for him. So we we separated them off and just to make it work and and, you know, I remember one night I had 25 calves run you know, I was here by myself doing this, and I had 25 calves running everywhere. And it was just a mess. Just a mess. So that was when it was like, we gotta figure out how to separate these calves from these cows because it just you know, it’s not working.

Glenda Pereira: 11:43

Right. And what is that choice today? Learned. Yeah. Yeah.

Glenda Pereira: 11:46

No. Absolutely. That’s why you you do this work. So, yeah, you know, we can absorb the the working out the kinks so then we can give provide folks some good recommendations for things that work and didn’t work. Did you do that twice a day?

Glenda Pereira: 12:00

So was milking still twice a day?

Brad Heins: 12:03

Milking was still twice a day. We milk these cows twice a day for we we weaned at at 9 weeks, so 62 months of age, roughly. So we milk these cows twice a day for 9 weeks, with their calves.

Glenda Pereira: 12:16

And what what what happens after weaning? So talk us through the cow side first. So what was production like, and what was weaning for for, like, for the cows? What will what was it like?

Brad Heins: 12:31

Well, it was interesting. You know, we when we when I wrote wrote this project, we decided to sort of wean cold turkey, you know, just separate cows and calves like beef beef cows maybe. You know,

Brad Heins: 12:45

Just done with it and and end. And, obviously, we’ve learned things to throughout and, you know, maybe we probably wouldn’t do that today if we were to do it all over again. But that’s what we did. And so we did it for 5 calving seasons. But actually quite stressful on the cows.

Brad Heins: 13:01

You know, if you when you separated the calves and the cows, I think, you know, the cows maybe had a harder time. They had a lot of vocalization, you know, when they were on pasture or in a barn, and it was milking time. It would be you know, those cows would run to the milking parlor because they thought

Glenda Pereira: 13:20

that they would

Brad Heins: 13:21

have to be there. So it was quite interesting to see. I think there was a lot of stress on the cows compared to the calves. Obviously, the calves still had stress too. They were bellowing and and all of that too.

Brad Heins: 13:32

But I think, you know, there was probably more stress on the cow than there was from the calves at weaning time.

Glenda Pereira: 13:39

Right.

Brad Heins: 13:40

So it’s kinda interesting.

Glenda Pereira: 13:42

Yeah. And you moved those calves along as a group, but obviously, you you know, they they kind of got to stick with their buddies, so that was probably beneficial too. That it was maybe a smoother transition for the calves than it was for the cows. Right?

Brad Heins: 13:59

Right. And they and they, you know, they were with other calves. They got commingled with other calves. It was kind of interesting. We do have we haven’t looked at this information yet, but, you know, so we had sensors on all these calves so we could look at, you know, behavior and activity levels of of the calves.

Brad Heins: 14:15

Obviously, the the calves that were raised on mom had way more activity than the calves raised in in hutches or groups just because they’re, you know, able to wander everywhere. But we haven’t looked at the activity level of after weaning, you know, so we commingled things and see how, you know, behavior worked with mingling calves raised individually or pairs or on mom and how that all worked with activity levels and and and behavior. We haven’t quite done that yet, but it is kind of interesting to see what what might happen.

Glenda Pereira: 14:48

Right. Right. And so do we so I think the one thing folks might be interested in learning is, do you have production metrics yet, or are those still to come?

Brad Heins: 14:59

On the calves that we raise that way?

Glenda Pereira: 15:02

On the cows.

Brad Heins: 15:03

Oh, the cows. Yes. The it’s still coming. You know, one interesting thing is you could see, you know, the calves, you know, when they’re young, the cow still has some milk in her. You know, we had, you know, some of these cows that would come into the parlor.

Brad Heins: 15:21

You know, calves were 2 weeks of age. They’d still have 30, £40 that they were, you know, producing. By the time we got to weaning, some of these cows had no milk. 0. They come in twice a day to get milked, and there was no milk.

Brad Heins: 15:36

You know, I had some milkers going, you need to call these cows. They don’t have any milk. Well, the calf was drinking all of the milk that these cows have and probably stealing from other cows.

Glenda Pereira: 15:45

Right.

Brad Heins: 15:46

And then after you weaned, some of the cows would come back, you know, milk 40 to £60 after weaning. Some cows didn’t come back as that high. So it was really cow dependent on on what happened after weaning.

Glenda Pereira: 16:02

Yep. And then for the calves, so I know we’re we have to kind of, like, you you know, think back that this was a comparison study where you were looking at calves raised on dam versus calves raised individually versus group and paired in a larger or or, you know, a hutch system. So walk us through some of the the calf metrics. So what was growth like across those 4 groups?

Brad Heins: 16:30

Well, if you if you look at growth, the the calves that were raised on the cows did the best. You know, they were about 2 and a half pounds average daily gain. You know, they were drinking as much milk as they could. The the calves that were raised individually, pair and group, they were all around a little over £2 of average daily gain per day, so there was really no difference in any of those. So, really, you know, growth was, you know, phenomenal in any housing system.

Brad Heins: 16:59

It’s just that the calves that were raised on cows had better average daily gain because they were drinking more milk. So that, you know, that just happening. You know, if you think about health, so somebody’s like, well, what about health? Well, yep. We had health problems in in all of the groups.

Brad Heins: 17:16

Just happens. You get scours in each one. We didn’t really have a whole lot of difference. We maybe had a few more scours actually in in the group housed calves, compared to some of the other ones. You know, if a calf in a group system, one calf gets sick, they kinda pass it to the rest.

Brad Heins: 17:35

Right.

Glenda Pereira: 17:35

It’s like day care.

Brad Heins: 17:37

Right. Exactly. That’s right. Exactly. But we didn’t have, you know, very you know, the out of the 200 and almost 300, I think, calves that we’ve raised, we had maybe 2 die.

Brad Heins: 17:53

So death rate was pretty low. We just don’t have if you feed calves enough milk, they’re gonna grow and they’re gonna be healthy. They’re not gonna die. So we but we see that in, you know, the group house calves probably had a little more respiratory issues too. Otherwise, these were, you know, pretty healthy calves all the way through.

Brad Heins: 18:11

No no no issues.

Glenda Pereira: 18:13

But I think you said something that was critical. So colostrum plays a big factor into making sure that these calves start on the right foot. Right? We we wanna make sure that these calves are getting colostrum so then they can build immunity. So do you, like like, do you wanna talk about how, you know, maybe did you did you test the cows for that were raising their calves for colostrum?

Glenda Pereira: 18:36

Give us some insight on that.

Brad Heins: 18:39

So, yeah, we we tested all of the colostrum that we got from these cows that was fed to the calves. We also tested the calves for what we call failure of passive transfer. So did they get adequate antibodies from the colostrum to help ward off disease, really? And the answer is yes. We the the calves actually that were raised on the cows had higher, total serum protein levels than the calves that were fed individually, pairs or in groups where we actually bottle fed colostrum to them.

Brad Heins: 19:15

So, you know, I think the, you know, raising a calf on a cow, that the cow does what it’s supposed to. It’s takes care of the calf. It, you know, provides adequate colostrum. You know, we had we had cows that had never raised a calf in their life, and they’re, you know, 5 years old, and they’re raising a calf just fine. And, you know, but I think there’s something to what what we call as transition colostrum or transition milk Right.

Brad Heins: 19:43

Where, you know, those calves are getting that transition milk as well. That’s from the cow, and they’re they’re just doing well. You know what? That’s probably one concern as people. Oh, we need to feed colostrum.

Brad Heins: 19:55

You didn’t feed these calves colostrum when, you know, when they were raised on mom? Nope. We didn’t do anything. We vaccinated it and then left it alone. So the cow the the calf had to get colostrum from the cow.

Brad Heins: 20:07

We didn’t force feed it at all on these calves, and they did just fine. We didn’t and we didn’t have any calves and cows that you know, every calf drank from her mom. There was no cows that wouldn’t take her calf. It it just worked out really well.

Glenda Pereira: 20:25

Yeah. You had good cows and calves.

Brad Heins: 20:27

You’re right. Right.

Glenda Pereira: 20:30

Yeah. And so I think we’ve covered quite a bit of ground. If farmers are looking to implement a similar system on their farm, what are, you know, the takeaways? I I think we’ve covered them all, but to recap, you know, it starts with the the dry period. Or if they’re a heifer coming into their first lactation, you know, it it starts during that those last couple of months before she’s coming into her first lactation.

Glenda Pereira: 20:56

So making sure that the dry cow nutrition is, you you you know, there is a a strategy in place for how it’s gonna be adequate. I think you talked about vaccination and making sure that the cows and calves had, you you know, were up with their vaccination protocols. And specifically, because I think, you know, there’s maybe some issues on farms regarding yoni’s, and yoni’s transmission may be something that farmers who are raising calves on cows, have to mitigate, and and, you you know, there is risk with implementing this strategy.

Brad Heins: 21:38

Exactly. There there’s inherent disease risk for these calves that are raised on on a cow. You know, yoni’s obviously is is one of them. It it, you know, you you have to be careful and make sure that you’re testing your cows. And, you know, so we had no doubt we had some of these calves.

Brad Heins: 21:59

They contracted yoni’s. We have yoni’s a lot. Every herd does. It’s just you learn to manage it. And, you know, it’s an it’s an inherent risk that comes along with, you know, raising calves on cows to make sure you’re, you know, making sure you’re not using Yoni’s cows to do that.

Brad Heins: 22:17

We had, you know, we we had everything that was tested, negative, but then, you know, it happens. They show up positive later. You know what? It it happens in in these animals. So it’s one thing to certainly consider is yonis and how to manage that.

Brad Heins: 22:33

And you should not use known yonis cows to raise dairy calves.

Glenda Pereira: 22:39

Yeah. And I think, like you mentioned, you know, regularly testing, whether that’s, you you know, depending on the farm’s budget, once a year or at least once during their lactation if you can. Because like you mentioned, maybe first lactation, second lactation, the cow is not positive, but 3rd lactation or 4th, she may become positive. So regular, monitoring for disease. And then I think we mentioned, you know, maybe learning how to use a refractometer to measure colostrum quality.

Brad Heins: 23:16

Yeah. Definitely. Colostrum quality is, important as well. In in any way you’re feeding the calves, you know, high quality colostrum will have, healthier calves, most definitely. Yeah.

Glenda Pereira: 23:29

So I think those were some good considerations for folks, that are looking to implement a similar system. And if they have questions, of course, I know that they can reach out to you and and find you on social media to learn more about this. So any final thoughts on, what’s to come regarding cow and calf rearing? Will we see more research from your team, being conducted on this topic?

Brad Heins: 23:59

Oh, I think we will. Certainly, as as farms move away from individual calf housing, there’s gonna be lots of different ways to raise calves. You know, every farm is gonna be different. Not every farm is gonna be the same. So it whatever works for their management style, but, yeah, we’re we’re looking at different ways to raise calves.

Brad Heins: 24:18

We’ve kind of moved into an auto feeder realm now as well to see how that works. And with with probably pretty good success right now, You know me, Glenda. I’m doing things unconventional. You know, I have 30 calves on an auto feeder in one pen seeing what happens. I I just I don’t believe what a a lot of people tell me.

Brad Heins: 24:37

And and our calves go outside on an auto feeder. So, they told me I couldn’t do that either, but I did.

Glenda Pereira: 24:44

Right. No. And I saw pictures. You post pictures regularly of your calves, and they they all look super comfortable in their pen. There’s good ventilation in there.

Glenda Pereira: 24:54

I’ve seen them on, you know, cold stays even outside because as long as there’s a good wind barrier or there’s no wind chill that day, you know, they really thrive in being outdoors. So having that space dedicated for calves, if there’s an opportunity to have them outdoors as well, I think really can mitigate and minimize rest any respiratory issues that the farm may be prevalent to. So that you’re absolutely right. They they your calves do a great job on your auto feeder, and I think you found ways to succeed with it. And it all comes down to management.

Glenda Pereira: 25:29

Right? I think sometimes management and facilities. Because if you don’t have the right facilities, I think an auto feeder could really not work for you.

Brad Heins: 25:39

Right. I I agree. I agree. It’s, you know, management and and facilities are are probably a important factor to do, and I like raising calves outdoors. I think it helps with respiratory problems, number one.

Brad Heins: 25:53

But

Glenda Pereira: 25:54

Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Heins: 25:55

Not everybody agrees with me. Not everybody agrees with me.

Glenda Pereira: 25:58

Right. Yes. There’s there’s room at the table for everybody’s system that works for them. So so that’s certainly why we’re sharing this information. So with that, I think we learned a lot today on how folks can one more tool in their toolbox for how they can implement another calf management strategy.

Glenda Pereira: 26:17

And I think, you know, making sure that the really, I think what I heard was that at the root of all of this is management of the cow and the calf has to be, you you know, appropriate so that you can succeed when you’re implementing this cow calf system.

Brad Heins: 26:32

Yep. Most definitely. Most definitely. The you gotta pay an important attention to calves and the cows.

Glenda Pereira: 26:39

Yeah. Well, we look forward to hearing more about your research in the future, and we thank you so much for sharing this tidbit. Again, if folks wanna reach out to you or learn more about you, where where can they find you?

Brad Heins: 26:52

You know, they can find us, on our our website, West Central Research and Outreach Center website. I think it’s wcroc.cfans.umn.edu, or you can find me on Instagram, umnwcrocdairy. I post lots of pictures and stuff on our calves and cows and and what’s happening at our our research center. And I guess, you know, I have a podcast too so we can, you know Yeah.

Glenda Pereira: 27:18

The Moos Room Check it out.

Brad Heins: 27:20

The Moos Room. Yeah. So we can there’s lots of good things that we talk about there too.

Glenda Pereira: 27:25

Awesome. Well, thanks, Brad. It was great to have you.

Brad Heins: 27:29

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

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