Why do you take the calves from their mothers?

I had a comment on one of my earlier posts where a concerned vegan had an issue with dairy farmers removing calves from their mothers. I thought about this practice and how misunderstood it actually is. So, since we had a brand new baby heifer calf born Sunday morning (which made us late for church-it was a good excuse) I thought it was a perfect example of this practice.

#663, otherwise known as Ruth Anne gave birth early Sunday morning (at about 5 am, when we weren't at the farm) to a little heifer calf, who is #814 in our records, but Ruthie to me. When we arrived at the farm for morning chores, I headed immediately to the dry cow pen, where I found Ruthie running around the pen and Ruth Anne keeping a watchful eye on her. Ruthie was making friends with the other dry cows, and needed to be moved. Healthy calves are able to stand and run at an hour old! Ruthie was loaded up in the wheel barrow and brought inside the calf barn, or nursery. Here Ruthie received an oral vaccination for scours, her navel was clipped and dipped with iodine. All 3 of these steps are done to assure that each calf born has a good start. Ruthie was placed in a freshly bedding stall, where she could be clean and free of pathogens. Just like babies born at a hospital and placed in a nursery. After making sure Ruthie was nested in, we headed outside to walk Ruth Anne to the milking barn. We walk our cows, it's the simplest way and the calmest method to move cows. Ruth Anne is a 2nd lactation cow, so she knew where she was headed. We ran Ruth Anne into the parlor and milked her. Ruth Anne then headed out to our fresh cow pen where she had free choice fresh warm water and all the nutritionally formulated feed she could eat.

Here Ruth Anne gets time to focus on taking care of herself, instead of worrying about her calf. Fresh cows require a lot of special attention. In the barn we check a variety of things every morning for ALL fresh cows, for their first 20 days. We check their temperatures (checking for infections), their rumen fill (how full their stomachs are), their ketosis level (liver health), and their bright eyes (overall health). If any of these items are off, we immediately work further to treat our cows, most of the time without antibiotics, but with probiotics. But enough about cows....back to Ruthie....

After milking Ruth Anne, we haul a pail of fresh colostrum (mother's first milk) back to the calf barn. We only feed colostrum from animals that we know are healthy and free of disease, if the mother is not free of disease we have frozen colostrum from healthy cows available to feed. Ruthie got fed over a gallon of colostrum, within hours of birth. In nature this is not always the case. Calves struggle to find their mother's milk and may not get the right amount, right quality or a timely feeding. Colostrum fed early in life increases passive immunity. Mothers pass immunity onto their calves through colostrum, but the calf is best able to receive this immunity during the early hours of life versus the later hours of life. Within 24 hours, on our farm, a calf will drink about 1.5-2 gallons of colostrum.

Another issue with letting calves suckle their mothers is an increased chance of infection in the calf and the cow. The calf can receive pathogens from the teats on the cow, since the teats are not properly cleaned. The cow can receive pathogens from the calf's mouth since it is also not clean. By using clean and sanitized equipment to collect colostrum and a clean and sanitized bottle to feed the calf we prevent pathogens from transferring, but still get the advantages of passive transfer immunity.

Other possible issues with leaving the calf with the cow are abandonment and injury. Sometimes there are mothers that are not good mothers. It doesn't come naturally. First calf heifers are some of the best examples of this. Once they deliver a calf, they may walk away, never lick off the calf and move to the feed bunk. The calf would be left to die, cold and wet. Sometimes cows, especially other cows, can hit or push around the newborn calf. They can even step on the calf. I have seen this happen, just after birth a fresh cow got up and swung around and stepped on her calf's leg. Luckily the calf wasn't injured badly.

Farmers care for their calves and fresh cows. Calves are the future of our herds-we want them to have an excellent start in life and cows are our present, and we want them to also have an excellent start. Removing calves from cows is not cruel, its actually in the best interest of both animals, both receive the best care possible. Because our cows always come first!

Calving Season has Begun!

Calving Season has begun at Orange Patch Dairy. I am so excited to be calving, it's my favorite season. When we purchased our herds of cows almost 5 years ago, we knew that each of the farmers that we bought from focused on calving heavily in the early winter months to allow for more time in the crop seasons. As a result, as the herd has grown, more and more animals are available for calving during the winter months. Last year we had about 30 head to calve between Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day...this year we await the birth of 40 calves!

So far we have 3 bulls calves and one heifer calf. Obviously I am hoping for more heifer calves so I can keep them, but the bulls are great too-a live calf is the best kind, regardless of the gender! I did some counting this morning, and I have about 27 head to have calves in the coming 30 days!!!! That's insane, and about 7 cows due in the next 6 days. This afternoon I induced a cow that is 5 days over due. Being over due increases the chances of a large calf and a difficult birth, so instead of waiting for nature to take it's course, we give it a little "medical" push. I am certain that this cow will be fine and I look forward to seeing her in labor tomorrow afternoon (it usually takes about 24 hours to get the birthing process started).

Today I also delivered a bull calf by myself. This is no easy task. I noticed that the cow was in labor at noon and I moved her inside, where she could enjoy a pen to herself. In about 20 minutes she broke her water (placenta) and was pushing. 5 minutes later I checked on her only to find rear legs sticking out. Calves normally are delivered front legs first, that way their heads come out first and they have the chance to breathe before they umbilical cord breaks. So I rushed to the office to grab some gloves and a chain. Yes, we use chains to pulls calves. It's not painful to the cow or the calf, but instead allows us to have more leverage when trying to help a 1800 pound cow deliver a 120 pound calf. Calves that size can't be delivered by hand, no body I know is that strong. So, nevertheless, I put the chains on the rear feet, tied up a rope, and used my body weight to put some pressure on the chain. Every time that the cow pushed, I pulled....with a lot of teamwork and positive encouragement, we delivered in about 10 minutes a healthy baby bull, and momma cow was in great shape!! Had I not helped her out, she would have strained and struggled for a long time, wearing herself out-causing stress on the calf and more than likely the calf would have been born dead, if she would have been able to get him out-all in all a success! Our cow, Xebe is a great cow-so tame and easy to work with-I am so happy we had success! I am looking forward to the next 27 calves, and hoping that I don't have to "pull" everyone of them ;)

Yevette-our 25# calf!!!! Born 6-15-09

Yevette, next to her mother Yasmine. Yasmine was sick with pneumonia when we dried her off last month. We treated her with antibiotics and she was better until last week when the rainy weather made her pneumonia flair up again. The stress from being sick again, forced her to calve early, 33 days early. It is amazing that we have a live calf, even if she's only 25 pounds!!!

Yevette, after her bath courtesy of her mother Yasmine My husband Jonathan with holding up Yevette next to our other calf "System" who is 3 days older than her and over twice her size.

Yevette, is knee high at 2 days old!

So darn cute!...she's so adorable, everyone stops to pet her when they walk by.

Yevette on the back of the 4-wheeler in the pasture, just before we brought her to the calf barn.

We take our care of our girls very seriously. Our care is concern with animal welfare, and their well being. Having a live calf of this size is a miracle of it's own, but also a testament to the care a dairy farm can offer an animal in need. Had this calf been born in the wild, she would have died and her mother would be dying. Thanks to modern agriculture and vetrinarian practices we can work to cure her mother Yasmine as well as take good care of our new premie. Yevette was vaccinated upon arrival as well as given a shot of steriods to help her underdeveloped lungs develop faster. Within hours of birth she was holding her head up and making noise. She wanted to get up and run but her premature legs just couldn't hold her yet. By today she could stand by herslef, but only with help from a human. She is amazingly able to drink 4 pints of milk each day, even though our average 100# calves will drink almost 2 gallons of milk each day. We call her our little miracle, and hope for her long life here are Orange Patch Dairy...she'll be so spoiled in the coming years!