Cows have been calving in Ireland for a long time, but this short column aims to update the latest thinking and research advice. Calf rearing needs a good start to be successful and probably the most important start is the first feed.

Animal Health Ireland (AHI) promotes the one-two-three slogan – feed three litres of the first milking of the dam within two hours.

The best advice is to use biestings from the calf’s own dam but if that is not possible or successful, or if the quality is poor (watery), then select biestings from mature cows (more than three lactations) as this will be better quality.

Some farmers will have the facility to take biestings from freshly calved cows in the shed where the calf is born (see video).

More will have to start up the milking machine and milk a number of freshly calved cows together, storing excess biestings in a fridge for a calf that might be born in the middle of the night.

Timing is crucial because newborn calves have a real thirst for milk very shortly after birth, so the quicker you can get biestings offered to the calf, the better the chance of success.

Snatching the newborn calf away from the dam shortly after birth minimises the chance of infection to the newborn calf and ensures the calf is kept as clean as possible.

The only other major change in calf-rearing advice recently has been to keep scouring or sick calves on milk while getting electrolytes. In the past, most farmers would take milk away from the scouring calf and mix electrolytes with warm water, but taking milk away has been shown to reduce energy levels in calves, slowdown recovery and the calf can lose weight quickly as a result.

1 Calving facilities should be clean, well bedded and well illuminated and have an adequate supply of clean water. Snatch the newborn calf away quickly from the cow to minimise disease.

2 Feed the newborn calf three litres of good-quality biestings from the first milking within two hours of birth.

3 A scouring calf should be isolated into a pen on their own but kept on milk. A healthy calf needs four litres of fluids and a scouring calf needs twice that much, so a lunchtime feed is needed. Continuing with milk helps heal the lining of the intestine, so continue to feed as long as they want milk and do not dilute milk with water.

4 Group-feeding calves with milk has reduced the labour involved with calf rearing considerably compared to individually feeding calves with buckets. Pooling milk for group feeding is not advisable if Johne’s disease has been confirmed in your herd.