The Calf Care event for the Dairygold region took place on the farm of Sean Kearney, who is milking around 115 cows outside the village of Kilbehenny on the Limerick side of the Cork/Limerick border.
Local Teagasc adviser Eoin Horgan was on the first stop. He spoke about the new rules on calf transport and calf sales.
Eoin said that before a calf can be transported off the farm there are seven signs of health that must be met:
The first is that the calf is bright and alert. This can be seen in the calf’s eyes – a healthy calf will have bright and alert eyes. The calf must have been fed colostrum within six hours of movement.The calf must have firm and worn hooves. Baby calves have soft hooves that only harden when the calf starts walking. A calf with very soft hooves has not been walking much.The calves naval must be dry. A wet naval indicates that the calf is too young to travel.The calf must have the appropriate tags.The calf should not have any scour.The calf should be between five and 30 days old and be strong and walking well.Eoin said that calves less than 50kg liveweight need between 0.3m and 0.4m sq of floor space per calf when in a trailer.
The floor of the trailer should be non-slip and no sharp projections in the trailer.
“A lot of these rules are fairly basic and the vast majority of farmers adhere to them anyway, but everyone needs to be conscious of the need for best practice at all times,” Eoin said.
Johne’s disease
The next stop at the event was with vet Eamon Guinevan who spoke about the new Johne’s disease control programme. He said that Johne’s is a disease of older animals, but animals are infected when they are little calves.
“Ireland has one of the lowest rates of Johne’s disease in the world, due in most part to our traditional method of calving cows in single pens. But as herd size is getting bigger and calves are born in group pens and fed pooled milk the risks of Johne’s spreading has increased,” Eamon said.
The disease manifests itself in animals wasting away
The most likely time for a calf to be infected is just after birth, when the calf comes into contact with contaminated dung. Johne’s can also be transferred in the colostrum of infected animals. The disease manifests itself in animals wasting away. He said that clinically infected cows will have a massive appetite, but will still be wasting away with a very bad scour.
He said that there are two phrases you will hear a lot when it comes to Johne’s disease and they are “own or known” and “snatching calves”.
Own or known refers to the colostrum that the newborn calf gets. It should be from either its own dam, or a dam that is known to be free of Johne’s disease. He said regular testing of cows is the only way to know their status. Snatching calves from their dams as soon as possible after birth (Eamon suggests 15 minutes after birth) will help to prevent the calf ingesting faeces which carry the disease.
He says there are two ways of containing the disease. The first is biosecurity.
A closed herd policy should be used where possible. Bulls can be carriers of the disease. He outlined a case where a farmer bought a bull that subsequently tested positive for Johne’s.
In another case, an infected bull was housed in one of the calving pens and contaminated the rest of the shed. He suggests that farmers should ask plenty of questions when buying in animals.
Herds that have a high assurance score have had a low exposure to Johne’s
The second approach is bio-containment. Pooling milk and colostrum is a big risk, especially when the status of the herd is not known. Calving sheds should be very clean and cows should be as clean as possible before calving, to help prevent contamination and the calf contacting the cow’s dung.
He said that the new control programme is more or less cost neutral to the farmer, if he or she is already in milk recording. The milk processor will reimburse the farmer for the costs involved in testing for Johne’s.
The new programme will involve testing cows for the presence of the disease. Every herd that participates will receive a herd assurance score.
Herds that have a high assurance score have had a low exposure to Johne’s. The plan is that this score will be made available to farmers who are considering purchasing animals from another farmer.
Scour
UCD veterinary lecturer Catherine McAloon spoke about treating calves with scour.
She said prevention is better than cure, but when it comes to curing scour, keeping the calf fed and hydrated is key.
Calves can be stomach-tubed electrolytes as many times as necessary, but milk should not be stomach-tubed more than once
She said electrolytes should be fed twice a day in two-litre feeds in between the main feeds of milk. Keeping calves on milk is very important as if milk is withdrawn the calf will be hungry and will more than likely die from lack of food rather than the scour.
She said calves can be stomach-tubed electrolytes as many times as necessary, but milk should not be stomach-tubed more than once.
On prevention, Catherine said that keeping the calf shed clean was essential.
She said that most scours spread via the faecal/oral route, meaning that calves pick up the scour from digesting dung. She said that for some diseases even 1g of faeces can contain 1m or more infectious eggs.
She said you can’t tell what type of scour is present by looking at it, so she suggests that farmers get scour samples sent away for analysis, as different types of scour, eg cryptosporidium require different treatment and prevention.
Catherine says farmers’ overalls and feeding equipment should be kept clean to prevent cross infection between calves.
She says that young calves should be fed first, with oldest calves fed last.
On disinfection, she says that floor and wall surfaces should be clean before being disinfected. She said that recent studies have shown that hydrated lime has a good benefit in reducing the amount of infectious agents in calf sheds.
Housing
Una Hickey from Volac spoke about nesting scores for assessing the bedding in calf sheds.
She said that when a calf is lying down and you can still see legs is a bad sign. This would be a nesting score of one.
A nesting score of two is when the legs are partly exposed while a nesting score of three, which is optimal for calves in their first three weeks of life, is when the legs are not visible at all as the bedding is deep.
The Calf Care event for the Dairygold region took place on the farm of Sean Kearney, who is milking around 115 cows outside the village of Kilbehenny on the Limerick side of the Cork/Limerick border.
Local Teagasc adviser Eoin Horgan was on the first stop. He spoke about the new rules on calf transport and calf sales.
Eoin said that before a calf can be transported off the farm there are seven signs of health that must be met:
The first is that the calf is bright and alert. This can be seen in the calf’s eyes – a healthy calf will have bright and alert eyes. The calf must have been fed colostrum within six hours of movement.The calf must have firm and worn hooves. Baby calves have soft hooves that only harden when the calf starts walking. A calf with very soft hooves has not been walking much.The calves naval must be dry. A wet naval indicates that the calf is too young to travel.The calf must have the appropriate tags.The calf should not have any scour.The calf should be between five and 30 days old and be strong and walking well.Eoin said that calves less than 50kg liveweight need between 0.3m and 0.4m sq of floor space per calf when in a trailer.
The floor of the trailer should be non-slip and no sharp projections in the trailer.
“A lot of these rules are fairly basic and the vast majority of farmers adhere to them anyway, but everyone needs to be conscious of the need for best practice at all times,” Eoin said.
Johne’s disease
The next stop at the event was with vet Eamon Guinevan who spoke about the new Johne’s disease control programme. He said that Johne’s is a disease of older animals, but animals are infected when they are little calves.
“Ireland has one of the lowest rates of Johne’s disease in the world, due in most part to our traditional method of calving cows in single pens. But as herd size is getting bigger and calves are born in group pens and fed pooled milk the risks of Johne’s spreading has increased,” Eamon said.
The disease manifests itself in animals wasting away
The most likely time for a calf to be infected is just after birth, when the calf comes into contact with contaminated dung. Johne’s can also be transferred in the colostrum of infected animals. The disease manifests itself in animals wasting away. He said that clinically infected cows will have a massive appetite, but will still be wasting away with a very bad scour.
He said that there are two phrases you will hear a lot when it comes to Johne’s disease and they are “own or known” and “snatching calves”.
Own or known refers to the colostrum that the newborn calf gets. It should be from either its own dam, or a dam that is known to be free of Johne’s disease. He said regular testing of cows is the only way to know their status. Snatching calves from their dams as soon as possible after birth (Eamon suggests 15 minutes after birth) will help to prevent the calf ingesting faeces which carry the disease.
He says there are two ways of containing the disease. The first is biosecurity.
A closed herd policy should be used where possible. Bulls can be carriers of the disease. He outlined a case where a farmer bought a bull that subsequently tested positive for Johne’s.
In another case, an infected bull was housed in one of the calving pens and contaminated the rest of the shed. He suggests that farmers should ask plenty of questions when buying in animals.
Herds that have a high assurance score have had a low exposure to Johne’s
The second approach is bio-containment. Pooling milk and colostrum is a big risk, especially when the status of the herd is not known. Calving sheds should be very clean and cows should be as clean as possible before calving, to help prevent contamination and the calf contacting the cow’s dung.
He said that the new control programme is more or less cost neutral to the farmer, if he or she is already in milk recording. The milk processor will reimburse the farmer for the costs involved in testing for Johne’s.
The new programme will involve testing cows for the presence of the disease. Every herd that participates will receive a herd assurance score.
Herds that have a high assurance score have had a low exposure to Johne’s. The plan is that this score will be made available to farmers who are considering purchasing animals from another farmer.
Scour
UCD veterinary lecturer Catherine McAloon spoke about treating calves with scour.
She said prevention is better than cure, but when it comes to curing scour, keeping the calf fed and hydrated is key.
Calves can be stomach-tubed electrolytes as many times as necessary, but milk should not be stomach-tubed more than once
She said electrolytes should be fed twice a day in two-litre feeds in between the main feeds of milk. Keeping calves on milk is very important as if milk is withdrawn the calf will be hungry and will more than likely die from lack of food rather than the scour.
She said calves can be stomach-tubed electrolytes as many times as necessary, but milk should not be stomach-tubed more than once.
On prevention, Catherine said that keeping the calf shed clean was essential.
She said that most scours spread via the faecal/oral route, meaning that calves pick up the scour from digesting dung. She said that for some diseases even 1g of faeces can contain 1m or more infectious eggs.
She said you can’t tell what type of scour is present by looking at it, so she suggests that farmers get scour samples sent away for analysis, as different types of scour, eg cryptosporidium require different treatment and prevention.
Catherine says farmers’ overalls and feeding equipment should be kept clean to prevent cross infection between calves.
She says that young calves should be fed first, with oldest calves fed last.
On disinfection, she says that floor and wall surfaces should be clean before being disinfected. She said that recent studies have shown that hydrated lime has a good benefit in reducing the amount of infectious agents in calf sheds.
Housing
Una Hickey from Volac spoke about nesting scores for assessing the bedding in calf sheds.
She said that when a calf is lying down and you can still see legs is a bad sign. This would be a nesting score of one.
A nesting score of two is when the legs are partly exposed while a nesting score of three, which is optimal for calves in their first three weeks of life, is when the legs are not visible at all as the bedding is deep.
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