Care and Management of Newborn Calf

Care and Management of Newborn Calf

Ajay Kumar, Rajneesh Sirohi, Mamta, Deep Narayan Singh and Yajuvendra Singh

College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, DUVASU, Mathura

Calves play an important role in the development of the dairy sector of the country, as the future of the dairy herd solely depends upon the successful raising of young calves. Female calves are especially kept for herd replacement. The male calves are usually kept up to weaning when they are sold. Calf-care is not only essential for sustenance of the dairy industry but is also essential for preserving and maintaining our good quality germplasm.

Removal of mucus:

Normally cow will lick and dry the calf immediately after parturition, which may stimulate cutaneous blood circulation and respiration. Sometime primiparous cows may be nervous and inexperienced or cow may exhaust after a prolonged labour. Under such circumstances the mucus (phlegm) from the nostrils of the newborn calf should be wiped and cleaned with a dry towel. Respiratory passage may be block with mucus and interfere with calf’s respiration. Under such condition the calf should be lifted by holding the hock in such a way that the head is down, so that the phlegm may flow off. Care should be taken while lifting the calf, it may slip off. A hand full of straw or clean towel can be used to have a grip while lifting. The calf can also make to sneeze by tickling a twig of hay or dry grasses inside the nostrils.

 

Artificial respiration:

 

The attending person should apply his mouth to the nostrils of the new born calf and suck out the phlegm. After that he should blow in his expired air through the calf’s nostrils closing its mouth. Calf’s lungs have taken in carbon dioxide from its exhaled air, which acts as a respiratory stimulant to start breathing. To provide artificial respiration, this should be followed by intermittent pressing and releasing of pressure on the chest wall of the calf

 

Naval cord treatment:

One inch from the body, the naval or umbilical cord should be ligatured with sterile thread, severed 1 to 2 cm distally, and extensively painted with tincture iodine or povidine iodine. This is crucial because infections can spread quickly via the naval and result in catastrophic illnesses including joint ill (swelling of the joints) and naval ill (an abscess of the umbilicus).

Feeding during pre-ruminant stage can be divided into fallowing steps

1. Importance of colostrum feeding
2. Whole milk feeding
3. Calf starter
4. Milk replacer
5. Forage feed

 

• Importance of colostrums feeding 

A normal healthy calf gets up within 30 minutes after birth while weaker need assistance. Feeding of colostrum within the first hour of life is essential and should be continued for the first 4 days of life.  The calf needs 3-4 liters of colostrum daily in 3 equal feeds. The vaccination of cows against infectious and communicable diseases is necessary to improve the quantity and quality of immunoglobulin in colostrum. Gamma-globulins are found in high concentrations in the colostrum of mature cows in comparative to heifer animals. These antibodies are absorbed, giving the calf a protective shield of passive immunity. Immunoglobulin levels in neonatal calves’ blood serum are 0.97 mg/ml at birth. After the first feeding of colostrums at 12 hours, it increased to a level of 16.55 mg/ml, and on the second day, it peaked at 28.18 mg/ml. Colostrum is highly fortified source of nutrient and have following property.

• It provide passive immunity to the new born calf
• It have laxative property
• Antitrypsin action (as such absorption)
• It is rich source of vitamin (A,D, & E)
• Excellent economic diet for the new born calves
• It should contain lysozyme, lactoferrin and lactoperoxidase as antibacterial agents.

 

• Whole milk feeding

Whole milk can be fed to calf from 4^th day onward @ approximately 10% of body weight at divided doses twice daily for maximum of 2 weeks. Antibiotics and feed additives should be mixed in the milk or concentrate to improve the growth rate. In intensive rearing of calves when day old weaning is practices each calf should be treated individually, it should be weighed weakly and feed according to the body weight and growth response.  Milk container, milk pails/buckets and other appliances should be kept clean and hygienic.  Milk should be boiled and cooled to body temperature (39°C) before feeding.  Milk feeding should be 3 or 4 times in a day during the first weak and can be reduced to 2 times in a day up to 90 days of age. One time feeding may cause indigestion and diarrhoea results in dehydration. If the calves not consume milk, the next allowance should be with held and it can be drenched with 30-50 ml of castor oil.  

• Calf starter

It is first solid concentrate fortified feed with mineral, vitamin and antibiotics. In order to promote early intake, starter can be given as a pellet or coarse feed and should be extremely interesting. To ensure healthy rumen development, make sure starter has adequate particle size, neither too powdered nor too dusty, as these conditions will decrease intake. Calves starts eating small amount of dry starter from the 2^nd week of life. To train them to eat starter mix, the following procedure may be useful. The calf starter can be introduced to the milk feeding pail, at the end of feeding, so that calf will lick it dry and the quantity can be increased gradually. Small amount of concentrate can be rubbed on the tongue and lips of the calf which will induce it to eat. A calf starter should be highly palatable. It should be high energy (70% TDN) and contain 20 per cent digestible crude protein. Calf starter may be fed on free-choice basis until the calf starts consuming about 1-1.5 kg of the starter mix a day after which the amount may be restricted. Generally calves reach this stage by 2 ½ months to 3 months of age. Milk feeding can be discontinued earliest which the calf is consuming 0.4-0.5 kg of concentrate per day deepening upon the breed. The constituents of calf starter may be altered according to the availability of feed in the region and cost.

• Calf milk replacers

It is fed to calves after two weeks of age to replace the milk and facilitate inexpensive calves’ rearing. At least 20% protein, 10% fat, 10% starch, and 10% sugar should be present in milk substitutes. Essential properties of milk replacers, nutritious, palatable, economical and supply sufficient energy, high quality protein, minerals and vitamins. Importance of milk replacers like improve growth rate, reduced the chance of disease, minimized the feed cost and stimulate rumen development. Milk replacer should be mixed in correct proportion in warm water, since dilutions which are too weak or too strong tends to create digestive problems. Optimum ratio of milk replacer (kg) and water (liter) is 1: 8. If the milk or milk replacer contains large amount of foam, it should be removed by drawing a paddle on the surface or by filtering through a clean cloth. Foam causes the calves to take in entrapped air which may lead to bloating.

• Forage feed

Clean, leafy green legumes provide a healthy free-choice source of feed for young calves. Forages are a good source of fibre, which supports the development of the rumen’s muscular layer and aids in maintaining the integrity of the rumen lining. To ensure freshness and promote intake, high grade fodder should also be provided in addition to calf starter. Positioning of feed racks and buckets at a level that is comfortable for calves to reduce the possibility of soiling

Methods of calf rearing

• Nurse cow method

Most of the draught breeds produce milk just sufficient to meet the requirement of calves and calves are allowed to suckle form the mother. But in case of crossbred cows which produce more milk than the requirement of calf, to regulate the milk production and also to avoid over feeding of calves leaving one or two teats for calf while milk out the other is practiced.  In nurse-cow method 3 or 4 calves are allowed to suckle one nurse cow. To avoid calf rejection the mucous at the time of calving is applied to all the calves to be adopted by the nurse cow and placed before her to lick and dry. This will help to avoid rejection of calf. The number of calves to be allotted depends on the production level of nurse cow. Use of nurse-cow is an easy alternate way of raising calves and required least manage mental skills.

• Weaning

Making the calf independent of its mother by separating the calf from its mother at zero-day or after some days of calving is known as weaning. Under early weaning system, the cow is not allowed to suckle its calf, instead, the cow is completely milked out and required quantity of whole milk or skim milk are fed to the calf.

Advantages:

• To avoid teat injury
• Total milk production of a cow can be recorded accurately
• Animals comes in heat early
• Cow continue gives milk whether calf not alive
• Calf rear artificially even if dam dies
• Reduced the chance of diarrhea
• To provide feed according to requirement

Disadvantages:

• Weaning is a problematic in indigenous cows and buffaloes due to strong maternal instinct.
• Zero day weaning can cause reduced milk yield in such animals, and also cause early drying and temperamental problems
• More labour requirement for cleaning of milk bucket
• It is stressful procedure for calf and dam

Training of calf for pail feeding

To, make feeding management is easier. Generally crossbred calves learn quickly to drink milk from pail or nipple. But it is little difficult to train buffalo calves. The scheduled quantity of boiled and cooled milk poured in the milk pail and should be moved to the calf.  The calves should not be forced to drink milk by immersing the head in to the pail.  Frightened calves may refuse to come close to the pail. The attendant should first dip his two fingers (index and middle fingers) in to the milk after cleaning and kept close to the mouth of calf. After testing the milk calf will start suckle the fingers. Gradually the fingers should be lower to the pail and should be dipped in to the milk. When the calf takes one or two mouthfuls of milk remove the fingers. This process may be repeated whenever the calf stops drinking and lifts its head. Buffalo calves are lazy and slow in learning to drink milk or milk replacer from the pail or bucket. So, training of buffalo calves required patience and efforts.

General management of calf

Success of dairy farming depends mainly on successful rearing of calves to a breedable age as early as possible with a minimum mortality as they are future herd for replacement. Health management and proper nutrition are important aspects in calf rearing. Mortality among properly fed and well managed calves is very low.

• Weighting of calf

Weighing is one of the most important farm practices applied for new born because of the following reasons:

• For optimum feeding to calf because scientific feeding is based on weight of the animals.
• For estimating growth rate calf
• To calculate actual dose of drug
• To know birth weight of animals and its comparison to standards of particular breeds. It also helps to prepare suitable breeding plan.
• To know the existence of chronic disease in farm, as weight loss of animal in herd indicates chronic trouble like worm infestation, nutritional deficiencies, infectious diseases like tuberculosis, Johne’s disease etc.

2. Identification

Identification is crucial for maintaining records, ensuring correct nutrition, medication and improving care of new born calf. A tattoo, ear tag, and photo can be used to identify a newborn calf. The purpose of identification is to-

• Maintenance of proper records on the farm.
• Proper feeding of animals.
• Helps in better management practices.
• Selling and purchase of animals
• Requirement for registration of pure bred animals.
• Helps in insurance of animals.

 

Disbudding and dehorning

Disbudding is the removal of the horn bud of calves at an age of up to two to three months, by damaging the tissues around the bud in order to stop the bud from growing. It is usually carried out using a hot iron or caustic paste. Dehorning describes the removal of the horns, which is carried out in older animals, after the age of two months. The dehorning procedure is described to be more painful than disbudding, since at that age the horn is attached to the skull and the bottom part of the horn contains very sensitive live tissues. The objective of disbudding or dehorning is to-

• Reduced to injuries to handlers and fighting of other animals
• More space requirement
• Damage of hides
• Self-injury
• Horn fracture or cancer
• Transport the animals without any injury

Problems of removing the horns like painful, natural defense, restraining, traditional breed standards, cultural significance. Role of horn in livestock rearing as social ranking, self grooming and thermoregulation.

• Removal of extra teat

Calves are born, sometimes with extra teats generally they are not functional but are removed in want of good appearance of udder and avoiding infection during milking stage. Surrounding of teats is cleaned and properly disinfected and cutting them off by sterilized scissors or knife after desensitizing locally with local anesthetics (lignocaine). To avoid excessive bleeding, this operation is carried out, when the calves are a week old. Antiseptic cream can be applied till the wound healed.

• Castration

A castration is the unsexing of male or female and consists in the removal of both testicles and ovaries respectively. It is probably the most common and oldest of all surgical operations. Castration of bull calves not intended for breeding is highly recommended. This practice allow quality bull only to be reserved for breeding and make the other animal easier to handle. It is best to castrate calves as soon as the testes descend into the scrotum since the small calves are easier to handle and they suffer less from the operation than larger animals. The purpose of castration is to-

• Indiscriminate breeding can be checked by eliminating undesirable males after castration.
• To make animal docile and easier to handle.
• Castrated males can be handled easily for agriculture purpose.
• Improved quality of meat.
• Castrated males can be housed along with heifers and cows.
• It is important in treatment of orchitis.
• It is also important in treatment of other ailments like tumor of testes, spermatic cord and accidental injury.
• Dewarming

Buffalo calves frequently infected with neonatal ascariasis, so deworming should be done as soon as possible, ideally in the first week of life. A single oral dose of 10 g piperazine adepate is recommended for the calves.

• Endo-parasites

In the new born calf the different types of parasites are found stomach, intestine, liver and lung. Some worms are mainly specified for young one i.e. Ascaris vitolorum, while liver flukes prevalence are rare in calf. To control the endo-parasites board spectrum anthelmintic drug should preferred like fenbendazole, albendazole and mebendazole. A dose rate for the therapeutic use is 5-10 mg/kg body weight depending on the severity of the infestation.

• Ecto-parasites

External parasites like ticks, lices, flies and mites spread more fatal disease like Babessiosis, theileriosis, anaplasmosis and trypanssomiosis. To control the ecto-parasites in animal body wash/ spray of 0.2-0.4% of the insecticide solution like cypermethrin and deltamethrin can be used which are easily available in the market with different trade names.

• Vaccination

The calves should be vaccinated for the viral/ bacterial diseases i.e. F.M.D., H.S. and B.Q. in the early age of life. To ensure immunization and vaccination schedule with booster dose to be periodically.

• Record keeping

Record should be kept regarding birth date, age; sex, sire and dam of each calf, vaccination, dew arming and dystocia at birth ect., for efficient management of new born calf.

• Bedding

Bedding must be kept dry and clean. Clean sanitary well bedded (3-4 inches thick) stall should be provided for the calf and periparturient/transition animal to avoid direct contact of animals with surface. It helps greatly in preventing naval infection/ joint ill. It act as cushion and reduces stress in animals and its new born. Paddy straw and dry garden grass can be used as bedding materials. Bedding materials should be replaced/ changed after a week, depending on number of animal kept on pen.

• Housing

Housing is crucial to protect the calf from unfavourable weather conditions. Calves maintained apart until they are about 8 weeks old to prevent licking from each other and facilitate better management. In that case, they ought to be housed in compact groups of 6–10 calves. For them to be able to alter group feeding and reduce feed rivalry among them. Monitor and record daily temperature in the calf shed using a min–max thermometer located at calf height. Supply plenty of dry bedding material to allow the calf to nest. The young calve should be kept separate because if they are kept in group may lick umbilical stump and cause infection.

• Exercise of calf

Exercising is to make muscle active and animal physically fit. Minimum exercise is necessary for all animals. It helps in normal body metabolic process and good health. Outdoor exercise exposes animals to sunlight and help in gaining vitamin D.