What is the biggest mistake producers make in feeding milk replacers?
Successfully raising baby calves is an art. When things go wrong, it is only human to look for someone or something to blame besides oneself. However, in looking at calf ranches from 5 to 5000 head, I have found management to be the limiting factor in most cases involving deaths in the herd. Calves will not raise themselves; they require intense supervision in the first few weeks of life. After a calf has reached three to four weeks old, the producer may relax a bit, but he or she must remain vigilant to notice any changes in the calves, their surroundings, or their rations. In other cases, deaths are due to some outside factor that no one can control. This may take the form of an infectious disease that affects all the animals (babies to adults) on the ranch or dairy. For instance, on a dairy farm this may manifest itself as a loss of milk production in the milking herd and a rise in death loss of the calf operation for no apparent reason. Most of the time, the disease will have run i
