Feeding whole milk to calves is ideal. Storing the milk in clean and sanitized system and pasteurizing it is a must to prevent the spread of disease including staph aureus, mycoplasma and now HPAI.

The Milk Taxi made it possible for Rose to feed whole milk and made it easier for her to keep the system clean ensuring she delivered quality milk to her calves.

Deep straw bedding is the best way to ensure calves are clean, dry and comfortable when it is chilly. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has developed a nesting score system to help us figure out how much bedding is needed. When it is cold, you should maintain a nesting score of 3. That’s enough bedding for the calf to nestle down to where her legs are not visible, covered by bedding.

During very cold months, adding a jacket helps to maintain the score of 3 as straw will lose some coverage if not refreshed daily. If shavings or less straw is used, and the calves’ legs are partially visible (score 2) or fully visible (score 1), or, if your manure handling system does not allow for straw bedding, providing a jacket is a must. As to which jacket is best, sturdy buckles are a must and avoiding jackets that use Velcro is key. The Velcro is hard to keep clean and it quickly looses it “stick”.

Cold stress in calves impacts the calf’s health today and her future as a lactating cow. As temperatures drop, calves will use their body stores to keep warm, wasting calories meant for growth and immune function.

Making sure calves stay warm can decrease pneumonia by as much as 50%. That is fifty percent less calves with pneumonia, less antibiotics, less needles, less headaches and more milk when she enters the lactating herd. Recent studies have shown that pneumonia in calves can decrease milk yield by as much as 8% in her second lactation.

There was a time when feeding 10% of body weight (4 litres/day) was an industry standard. Today, we understand calves perform better in all environments when they are fed to thrive. Farms have been adopting 8-10 litres/day (more in winter) with impressive results!

With the MilkTaxi dispenser, Rose can not only make sure she is feeding enough, but she can also be sure it is a consistent amount, minimizing the chances for GI upsets.

Rose reports that her first group of calves were healthier and the system was much easier to manage.

As with most things, it depends. The easy answer is to say, “winter through early spring based on average temperatures”. The better answer is to look at your temperature across the day, not the average. The thermal comfort zone of a calf less than 3 weeks of age 15-26°C. That means, for most of North America, there are parts of the day throughout the year when newborn calves would benefit from deep bedding and or a jacket.

Using Weather Spark, you can see the average hourly temperature for your specific geography throughout the year. Jackets can be combined with less bedding or shavings during the summer months when the days are plenty warm but the nights and early morning still get chilly.