Bovine Banter
Bovine Banter focuses on management, production, and profitability to help make farms more successful. Join the Penn State Extension Dairy Team for informal educational conversations with dairy producers, industry representatives and Penn State faculty and research. Each week we will cover hot topics in the dairy industry that will help dairy producers become more profitable. Guests will compare research with experiences of what has and has not worked on their farms and provide tips to help make you more successful.
Bovine Banter
Organic Calf Rearing: How Grain, Water, And Timing Shape Calf Rumen Development
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Rumen development drives the future of a calf. It is the beginning of forage digestion, growth, nutrient absorption and future milk production. This is especially true for calves being raised for organic purposes. Join us on this week's episode of Bovine Banter to learn about proper rumen development in calves for organic production and how to achieve it in your calf herd.
Welcome And Why Rumen Matters
SPEAKER_00Hello and welcome to the Beau Vine Banter Podcast with Penn State Extension Dairy Team. I'm Angela Brennan, Dairy Management Educator for Lancaster County, and today I'll be your host. Rumen development dictates the future of a calf. It's critical for digestion of grains and forages and for growth and nutrient absorption. Proper rumen development also, in part, controls their lifetime potential for milk production. It is especially true for calves being raised for organic purposes. Proper rumen function is vital for organic operations as it helps them effectively digest the abundant fiber sources that are being offered. Today I have the pleasure of talking with Judd Heinrich, a longtime Penn State faculty member and pioneer in calf research and rooming protocols. Join me as we discuss with Judd about how to achieve proper rumen development in calves and why it's so important. Judd, welcome to our podcast. I'm excited to have you here. How are you today?
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you very much, Angela, for having me. It's uh yeah, this it's great. Uh it's except the sun isn't shining here in central Pennsylvania where I am, but it it seems like it doesn't a whole lot these days.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, same here.
Calves Start As Monogastrics
SPEAKER_01Well, then I'm the area of rumen development is is always been an interesting one. Uh, there's been a lot of research done over the last hundred years on rumen development. Uh we we did a little bit of research to fill in a few pieces um maybe 15, 20 years ago. Um, but the the the whole concept of rumen development is is interesting for the calf in that they're born as a monogastric. The the only functional part of their four stomach compartments is is their abomasum. So that they're effectively a monogastric. The rumen reticulum omasum are just not developed at all. Um, and they do very well on milk, uh like any monogastric would. So we feed them milk for a while. Uh, but the bottom line is they're gonna turn into a ruminant at some point. Uh, we want them to be a ruminant because they're meant to digest forages and grains. Uh, and so developing that rumen is is a good thing to do. Um it's gonna happen sooner or later, uh, just because the calf is exposed to eating some forages, eating some grains, and it and it moves along. And and by five months, maybe the end of four, maybe six months for some, uh, they will have a well-developed rumen. However, with with our management, um up until they have a developed rumen, we have to feed the milk. They have to get a lot of their nutrients based off of milk, uh, which is number one, expensive, and number two, it's very labor-consuming. Um, the third thing we always have to remember with with milk feeding, as long as you have a calf on a milk diet, um, they're much more susceptible to digestive upsets. And so you get more scours. So there's a little bit of a health reason to get that rumen well developed, also. Um and and that's really because um once you get that rumen so well developed, you've got billions and billions of bacteria and microbes in there. And so if a calf eats something that might cause some digestive upsets like it would in a simple stomached animal, um, it has to get those those bacteria have to get through the rumen and they can't. So that rumen becomes basically a way to eliminate the bad bacteria and just allow um the the correct stuff to get down into the GI tract. Um, so we we've got those varieties of reasons.
Why Grain Drives Rumen Growth
SPEAKER_01Um when we're developing a rumen, we want to do it primarily so that that ruminant can digest forages. But the interesting thing is it's it's grain that that develops a rumen faster than forages. And so that part of it is it seems a little intuitively backwards, but uh it works. Um and and to explain a little of the of the science behind it is that um you basically the the calf uses the energy it's getting from glucose in its blood system uh to grow all the tissues in the body. But interestingly, the the cells in the developing rumen have an affinity for butyric acid. And so when the rumen makes butyric acid, it can get absorbed directly into the cell wall of the rumen and allow that to grow at a faster rate. Uh, it doesn't get into the general circulation, so it doesn't get up to the liver to get made into glucose. So when I feed something that makes more butyric acid, it grows the rumen faster. When when I'm tired of feeding liquid feed and it's expensive, uh, I want to grow that rumen faster, get them onto grain, get them onto forages. So so that's the interesting part of it, is is I want uh to develop that rumen faster. And the the thing that makes butyric acid is sugar and starch. It's not forage. And and that's why grain, which has sugars and starches in it, more likely, um, will develop the rumen faster. And and so that that's kind of the fundamental thing behind it. Now, now we know some grasses have and it's early spring grasses have high levels of sugars, and and they do really well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01In fact, I was thinking I for for about 20 years, I I helped teach a one-week class at the University of Costa Rica, Central America. Uh, and and you know, they don't feed much grain there because number one, grain isn't available. Number two, it's really expensive because they don't grow it there, they have to ship it in primarily from the US. Um, and but they can feed um calves some of their lush forage. Uh, it's it's about the consistency of what we say would be lawn clippings, and it's really high in sugar, and it develops a rumen. So um, you know, you it it can work, but it's a it's a it's a limited thing for us once we get to this time of year for sure in in in Pennsylvania. Um we we don't have high levels of sugars in our in our forties, and so we don't get the butyric acid.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, and that I always say it's a good balance, right? There's a lot of different calf programs out there, and there's a lot of different theories on how to feed calves. Um, we see some really heavy milk uh being fed, we see forages being fed really early. Um it but it all depends on the calf, right? And it all depends on balance. And the and the goal is to get that rumen developed and the sugars and the butyric acid that it needs so that it can go on to digesting those fibers more effectively, um eventually in the future, right?
SPEAKER_01Right.
Balancing Milk With Starter Intake
SPEAKER_01And and the other interesting thing with the milk feeding that that you just make me think of is the more milk you feed, the more energy you get from milk, the less energy they have a desire to get from anything else. Right. So there's this constant balance of how much milk do you feed versus how much primarily grain are you gonna get into them. And of course, then you get more and more grain into them, and then sooner or later they the the rumen gets bigger in size. That's also part of it. Um, and and so then they eat more forage. Um the size is part of it that that's a critical one for anybody is we need to grow the calves bigger so that they have more physical size to digest, to hold the forage to digest them, just because they are slow to digest.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we know that rumen development is crucial, right, for digesting fibers. We think about mature cows, we think about the the four compartments, um, and the rumen is the fermentation vat, that is its job, right? Um, so how crucial is it in the beginning? Is there a time frame that we want to get this rumen developed for? Is it eventually just going to happen? Um, does it benefit us to get it done quicker? What what are kind of the mechanics behind that?
SPEAKER_01It's it's it's gonna happen sooner or later. As I said, by by six months, they're gonna have a developed rumen. But all the while you have to feed milk. And milk is expensive and and labor, you know, it takes a lot of labor. So the goal is is kind of always been to let's get those calves weaned at a reasonable time. Let's not feed them too much milk, um, so that we get more grain intake. And and so it's it's kind of a a catch 22. We we we we know we can grow them faster on milk. If you want a huge calf, you feed it a full bucket of milk until it's six months of age, and you got a very big calf.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then you take it to the county fair and it does well. But there's no economics to that, and and it's it's it's pretty time consuming.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So so we wanna, you know, I I have always said, you know, there's a there's a hundred different ways to feed calves, and I know that, but yes, you know, my recommendation is is try to wean them by six, seven, eight weeks at the most. Um, and a lot of people are weaning a little later than what they used to, but um um, and I always say never feed them more than six, six quarts a day. But I realize a lot of people feed more than that, and that's their you know prerogative, and and it works.
Weaning Timing And Metabolic Efficiency
SPEAKER_01Um but oh the other interesting thing that from the physiology standpoint is um when I'm feeding milk to a calf, and as long as I feed milk, uh the lactose gets absorbed, goes to the liver and gets made into glucose. And it's a pretty decent process. However, once I get the rumen developed and I'm making acetic propionic and butyric acid, they also go to the liver and get made into glucose. And the system has to evolve in the liver to make that change going from lactose to VFAs to making uh sugar. But the VFA production of getting glucose in the liver is more efficient, which is how we get a hundred and whatever pounds of milk from our from our lactating cows. They have to produce a lot of glucose to do that. Yeah, it's because the liver is is super efficient at doing that. And so the the quicker we get that process going, uh, the quicker the calf is going to take off and grow. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why people find that you you wean a calf, and and I've had you know, it's a standard thing. You get a calf at four months of age, she's been weaned, and all of a sudden she's grown like crazy. You know, and we we were trying to get a few extra ounces a day gain early on with our milk feeding, and yet now we're getting you know half a pound increase, uh, and it's because she's her distal metabolism is so efficient.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, everything's shifting.
When Calves Start Eating Grain
SPEAKER_00So grains are important for rumen development. How soon should we offer grains, uh starter grains to calves?
SPEAKER_01Uh see, I say you can never do it soon enough. I mean, we we usually try putting a little grain in there, mainly to tease them the first week, and we always recommend that, or I always did. Uh, however, I know fully well that until about two weeks of age, they're not going to eat much.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01In fact, you have to be careful it doesn't get moldy or you know, cause some issues of palatability before that. But uh by about two to three weeks of age, they they start nibbling a little bit because they're they're curious and and they're also a little bit hungry. Um, then we we back off our milk a little bit by four weeks, and so when you back off in one energy source, they're gonna take over the other, and and so you know that but they should be eating noticeable amounts of grain by four or five weeks. Because they don't, that's that's when you teach them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I feel that's always when they started, you know, like you said, by two to three weeks is when they started to get more curious as well. And once they figure out, hey, this is food and I can eat it, uh, they've always picked up pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I I always made a joke. In fact, I had a good slide for it. Uh is that calves innately know how to suckle when they're born. That's that's part of their innate response. They they just do it. Yeah, not 100%, but 99 point something do once in a while. One doesn't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, most of them get it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The the other things calves innately know how to do is nibble what's on the ground. So I've always said, you know, if if you don't want to teach that that one calf in ten that doesn't understand the stuff in the bucket is what they're supposed to be eating, then put your calf starter on the ground and use it as betting. And and they'll they'll nibble it faster. Now, no one will ever use calf starter or calf grain as bedding. I understand that. But but it kind of made people laugh because you you realize that, yeah, okay, that's it's innate. They know to nibble what's on the ground. And that's what they do in in Central America is they they nibble that that grass that's on the ground, and and you know, that that's a that's a normal, a normal thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
Water Access And The 20-Minute Rule
SPEAKER_00So this just made me think this is a question that I get off often asked, and I think this is super important. Um, but water. What are your thoughts on offering calves water? How soon should we offer calves water? And how important is water to the rumen and to the development?
SPEAKER_01Well, the the what water is is super important because you're feeding a dry grain into that rumen, and and they they have to have some water in there with it. Um, again, we usually always say get water available right after birth. Uh, if you get a calf that drinks a lot of water, though, you can get in trouble with that right after birth because they dilute the milk effectively. Uh so you really don't want water intake of any amount until again that that two to three weeks of time period. But but by then they need to understand what that is and and they need to be be drinking it every day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I oftentimes, if I see um customers on heavy milk diets, um, sometimes I will find they'll say, Oh, they don't need water because they're getting so much liquid nutrition. But I just think it's still important to know that calves always need water. There always needs to be water there available to them, especially like you said, after that two to three week um point.
SPEAKER_01In fact, the interesting thing that was, gosh, this is like old, old, old research, but you take a calf on milk, something that has the sights and sound, the the smells of of of milk, and it bypasses the rumen, goes into the abumasum to be digested, which is normal. Uh if you wait 20 minutes and the esophageal groove has opened back up, you give them water, it ends up in the rumen. So that's one of the things the little nuances with with water feeding is that when you get done with milk feeding, don't immediately put water in front of the calves. Wait 20 minutes. My expression was always go do the cleanup from the milk feeding, and then come back and feed your water and grain. And by then the esophageal groove has opened back up and it'll go in the room and where we want it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Judd, I think you had mentioned that one time in an article when I was in college at undergrad, and my now husband and I had graduated together, and we started, we came back to his family farm after graduation, and we started a calf rain program at home because we had previously sent them out to a custom heifer raiser. And that was one of one of the things that we implemented. We fed milk and then we went and fed grain to older animals and then came back and fed water and grain about 30 minutes later. So that's something that we still do to this day. So I agree. I think that's very important.
SPEAKER_01And there is no question that a calf that is fed water will consume more forage and grain than a calf that's not fed water. There's flat out no, you know, there's no argument on that one. It it it does make a difference.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and there's there was actually a study that was published. Um, I'd have to go back and look to see who published it, but they looked at Kives and they gave Kiv water and not water, and they actually found that calves that drank water actually drank more milk and consumed more grains when they were offered free choice water 24-7. Um, so I just can't harp on enough how important it is to give Kivs water. Especially during the summer months here in Southeast PA when we're getting getting kind of warm.
SPEAKER_01Yep, absolutely.
What To Look For In Starter
SPEAKER_00So, Judd, if we think about a calf feed, what what are we gonna look for in a calf feed nutrition-wise? I mean, there's lots of different options that we have available to us these days. There's, you know, we're fortunate down here in Southeast PA to have a variety of feed mills, a variety of feed companies, but it's it's not like that everywhere. So what are kind of the basics or what are the importance that we're looking for in a calf feed?
SPEAKER_01Um basically something that's about I I usually say closer to 20% protein, but 18 to 20% protein for a calf starter is good. Uh, it needs lots of starch, um, lots of energy, um, and big thing is palatability. Now, if they're not offered any forage, you've got to have some sort of a fiber source in it, but but most calves are are offered some forage, so that's not not a real issue. But uh it's and and it's any starch. It doesn't need to be corn, it doesn't need to be oats, it doesn't need to be wheat. This is anything that's a starch, whatever's available. Um and the processing of it is up to you. Um, a lot of the there's a lot of producers around the world that feed whole grains to calves, and it works very well. Uh the calf digests differently than an adult cow, so I can feed whole grains to a calf and they don't make it through the rumen. They get chewed and crunched. Um, and calves actually will ruminate on whole corn or whole wheat. It's kind of funny. Uh the one that I don't recommend feeding whole is barley. And and that's a palatability thing because it the shape of the grain it tends to be a little bit fighty. Um and so they don't like it as well. That one might need to be rolled or or you know, flaked or something. Um but in terms of most of the other grains, they can be fed whole, depend on you know what what's available.
SPEAKER_00And what about texture? Do you have a preference on texture or should there be anything that we should stay away from?
SPEAKER_01Um if you're if you're feeding pelleted calf starter, they need some forage. Like five percent of their diet should be forage of s of some sort because they are ruminant and they they do need to, that actually helps develop their papilli. And and it's only because a pelleted kef starter uh or or any feed has to be ground fine in order to get through the pellet mill. But the good side of that is is that there's no sorting. Any vitamins, minerals, whatever else you want to have in that calf starter is gonna be in that calf starter. Um if it's if it's a textured kef starter, it probably have some molasses or something on the outside to help hold all that stuff together. Um and again the molasses is a sugar so it helps with rumen development. So there's there's nothing wrong with that. And in fact a lot of a lot of pelleted calf starters have dried molasses in it for the same reason. It's a taste. And so so either one really works well. Or you know you've got three choices whole grains um um pelleted or textured and a lot of calf starters will have a combination of those. There's some places in the US that that a farmer buys a pellet and then mixes their own homegrown corn with it. So so you look at the calf starter and it's it's a third pellet and two thirds corn.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I have seen that also yeah it's it works well. Yeah sometimes we see if conventional calf starters aren't available for purchase we will have people that make their own and I think that can work wonders as long as we have the basics um that we need in there sometimes we will see that when ingredients are limited we'll have a meal form type calf feed that's being fed. What are your thoughts on that? I've seen it both ways I've seen it work really well and sometimes I sit there and say I'm not really sure how this is working so well in this program. And then I've seen it not work really well on farm. So what kind of are your thoughts on on that?
Pellets Versus Texture Versus Meal
SPEAKER_01Well it it's it's kind of how it's made if it you know anything that's that's dry and dusty isn't real palatable for the calf.
SPEAKER_00The other problem can be again how it's made uh and ground um you can have sort of sifting and sorting it as as it moves around in the bins or whatever the vitamins and minerals you know get sorted out and so the calves aren't getting a good total total diet that they should um which is again how the whole industry moved to you know textured feed with molasses or or pelleted feed uh to make sure that that you don't have those issues but that doesn't mean it can't be done at home uh as long as you pay attention to it that uh but just remember a a calf doesn't early on like dry and dusty it's the most palatable once they're weaned they don't care that much or they they really don't uh but uh when when they're really young it it's palatability that makes a big difference yeah so switching more to looking at um grass-fed production for lactating animals and you know our organic and regenerative ag based systems um a lot of times when they're in their heifer rearing
Pasture Calves In Organic Systems
SPEAKER_00process they want to get those calves out on pasture pretty quickly or to a forage based kind of feeding system are there any challenges that would be more so associated in the wet calf phase getting ready for that grass fed phase um or are there any challenges that we have to think about to kind of be intuitive about rather than reactive okay well I mean calves on pasture assuming you're you're you're rotating them pretty quickly so they've you know every couple days so they move up just a little bit so they're not laying in dirty areas but they they can do really well except a calf is a lot more susceptible to heat and issues related to flies and and of course parasites uh but but flies and heat are the are the biggest ones that I think really affect us um that just bother the calves and then they just don't do as well which is why we tend to have them more likely they'll have some shade.
SPEAKER_01I didn't the the the sun too I mean just being out in the hot sun tend to be tough on them. So you you you're dealing with with a neonate there and and and they need to uh need to have a little extra care. Uh you go to some places I'm thinking uh you know you you you go to Ireland where they all calves are group fed and they're all outdoors. I shouldn't say all because there's always there's exceptions all over the place I'm sure uh but a lot of them are uh because there's seasonal calving so you have lots of calves uh but they get fed milk once a day and they're outdoors and they get moved a little bit every day to keep clean and and they don't get sunshine there either. So you know we're not as as hot as sunshine so it doesn't bother the calves but they can do really well on that.
Once-A-Day Milk Feeding And Curding
SPEAKER_01And and the once a day feeding is is one of the key things on on their programs that work well because the calf will always eat more whether it's forage or grain when they're fed milk once a day. Same amount versus twice a day. That's one people don't like but the the the the calf makes when when I feed a calf milk it makes a curd in the Abba Mesa. If I feed it three quarts of milk uh it makes a reasonable size curd and takes probably 12 hours to digest that curd. If I feed six quarts of milk at one time it makes a much bigger curd and takes probably 24 hours to digest that curd. Either way the calf is is getting energy and fat and protein from that curd 24 hours a day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So whether you feed a calf one, two, three, four, five, six times a day it's the same.
SPEAKER_00That's that's actually a good point. Because I know there there definitely have been some recommendations on feeding smaller meals more frequently but that's that's a good point to make.
SPEAKER_01Well if it if it's something that doesn't cause if it's a a milk replacer that has whey protein in it not skim protein in it skim milk protein then feeding more often is going to be better because the the way it's digested the a i a whey protein doesn't form a curd.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01It still gets digested well but it just in in a different manner.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah I I was in Ireland and I was visiting farms all across Ireland and that was definitely an eye-opening experience coming from America to Ireland to see how they they not only raise calves but milking cows and grazing cows in general that was definitely an interesting experience a lot of mob feeders a lot of acidified milk a lot of cows out on pasture even dairy or uh beef cattle out on pasture so yeah that was definitely a really neat experience um and and their pasture because of the way it grows and the amount of rain that they get and it is full of sugar.
SPEAKER_01Yeah and so when they when those calves are are eating grass being rotated every day or two so it's it's always fresh grass they're getting a high sugar diet they're getting really good rumen development so it works well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah the most luscious pasture I've I've ever seen and everywhere I mean I don't know that I was ever in a pasture that looked poor even greased pasture. It was it was really amazing to see.
SPEAKER_01Yeah yeah it it's actually that's actually one step better than the ones in Central America because they're their grasses in Central America are different kind of grasses and so the fiber digestibility is lower. The fiber digestibility of of the stuff in Ireland is amazing.
Signs A Calf Is Rumen-Ready
SPEAKER_01Yeah really high passage rate yeah so we know we need milk we know we need some type of grain in there to get some rumen development started how do we know then that we achieved proper room and development or that a calf is ready to move on to forages is there some telltale signs that we can look for or what should we be be basing off of okay now our calf is ready for the next step uh there's really no telltale way to do it with a live calf uh it's just that if you know if if you were to look at the rumen you could see what was on the inside you could tell what's going on but basically once that calf has been eating uh a pound or two of grain for three weeks it's got to develop derumen that that's all there is to it um and and they're growing and and that's a lot of it is is is their growth rate is is keeping up there because one once they've made that switch to the liver utilizing acetic propionic and butyric acid I mean their efficiency just goes way up and and so they're you know growing real good um and some people just have a a an affinity for liking to feed calves milk and so they feed them longer and longer and longer and it doesn't hurt the calf at all it just costs a little more money and and time but you know yeah yeah and that's what I was going to mention.
SPEAKER_00So when we have high volume milk programs that's the other piece to that it's gonna take a little bit longer to get those calves really fully on grain and to get that rumen developed. So that takes a lot longer of a time when you when you're feeding a program that's high volumes of milk. So I always like to caution people with that too um you know if we're feeding high volumes of milk we can't be weaning at that starting our weaning process at that six week time period.
SPEAKER_01Yeah just to make sure that they're able to digest those those fibers and those forages effectively then um and the other thing early on that people need to understand though is that the volume of the rumen is small at birth and you can't do anything about that. That's just the way it is it's it's going to have to grow so so feeding a more concentrated diet like grains versus forages is going to get us more energy into the calf more protein and everything else so I can have faster growth rates. So you want a faster growth rate so that I can get more forage into the calf later on but it takes kind of grain to do that early on.
SPEAKER_00Energy density and kind of more bang for our buck right so we do also know that if we don't necessarily get proper room and development we can see some health effects to the calf I just want to make a note of this that like you said eventually we are going to see rumen development it may take longer um but I just wanted to take note with operations where we cannot use antibiotics we can't use types of conventional treatments that we normally would what is what does the rumen serve in terms of providing some part of health benefits to the calf what's what's the I guess the importance of making sure that we're getting that rumen developed and that calf is eating correctly for what stage of life that it's in in terms of health effects?
Health Protection From A Functional Rumen
SPEAKER_01It's a couple things one is the the is the fact that you've got this large volume of microbes in there and so when a calf does eat something that it shouldn't uh some dirty beddings and whatever else and you know you don't worry about the bacteria that are in that because they'll never get past the rumen. Or you take a monogastric animal or which is also a calf that hasn't you know been weaned uh the rumen isn't fully functional and so those bacteria can get in the small intestine and cause us problems usually related to scours so so there's definitely a a health effect there to having that that rumen well developed but it it also means that the the calf is is growing well and eating more and just all around doing better uh with a well developed rumen which which is gonna allow her to be healthier.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I always tell uh my customers and the people that we work with if if we have a healthy calf they have a healthy rumen right or they have a healthy digestive tract and when they don't we can open them up to other issues it's sort of like a chain effect right um because normally if they don't have a healthy rumen they're not eating well if they're not eating well that affects other body processes and leaves them open and weaker to other diseases that could also you know um affect them as well.
SPEAKER_01So just wanted to talk a little bit about the importance of that um especially if we're thinking about production where for scours we can't be using antibiotics um or if there aren't conventional tools that we can use to help treat those animals we're probably going to be experiencing more loss in that instance then which doesn't help our milk cow herd for in terms of replacement it also doesn't help our our paychecks right right right in our bottom line so Judd is there any other
Growth Goals For Breeding And Calving
SPEAKER_01outstanding messages that you want to give to dairy producers about the importance of rumen production or about calf rearing and raising calves uh not really other than you know we I mean I I guess the the the big thing is we want that calf to get growing because we we want her to be large enough to to breed uh at a reasonable time and we'd also like her to calve you know pretty consistently close to two years of age um I I prefer 23 months but that's uh you know but uh we we have to keep them on a good growth plane and and we can't slow them down the first three four months of life uh by by not having a well developed rumen um and and and part of that is not offering too much forage that that ratio of forage to concentrate is uh is always a key one just because forage takes takes longer to digest and the rumen is smaller. So we've we've got this trade-off there um I know forages are gonna be cheaper and they're what she was designed to digest but but you got to get the grain into them earlier so that they can get the rumen to to function. So um I I think a little bit of grain is is going to be a a good investment early on um to get that calf growing. And then that's that's just the key one.
SPEAKER_00Not that forages are bad and not that we don't want to not feed forages obviously we want to um but the balance the balance is key.
SPEAKER_01Right yeah I mean you your goal is to get that rumen large enough and the and the heifer doing well enough that I don't need more than a half a pound of grain a day into the but that doesn't always happen with Pennsylvania forages. We don't always have the super high quality but that's what we'd like to have and that's what we strive for.
SPEAKER_00So right well Judd thank you so much for joining us today and talking a little bit about rumen development and how to grow some dairy calves I am super glad that we got to have this conversation like I said I've spent many years reading your articles and your studies and I specifically remember you know pictures of rumens of calves being fed milk and hay and grain and I still use those pictures today. I think that is just the foundation of how we raise calves so thank you for taking time to chat with me today. I learned a lot from this conversation too but just to kind of recap of what we talked about we talked about that calves need milk they need grain they need forages but it's about balance and how we offer them to calves the biggest thing is we want intakes and um getting you know making sure that they're getting that green into them to develop that rumen for the benefits of the rumen development and that forage is is definitely an available option for calves but we just have to make sure that we're providing them a balance between green and forage intake as well. So any other points to take away from that conversation for you Judd? Not really although you make me think of uh with with the economics of the times I'm I'm glad that we did all that rumen development research where we good bad or indifferent we had to slaughter a lot of calves in order to take pictures of the Rumens and I was buying bull calves at 30 40 50 dollars a piece times have definitely changed definitely we wouldn't be doing that today yeah yeah times have definitely changed but no I'm I'm certainly glad that you did that research and I think as dairy producers I mean a lot of times we see the outside characteristics of the calf not necessarily what's happening on the inside I mean we don't want to right because that usually means that our calf is no longer yeah so I think it's just super beneficial for us to get to see a a snapshot of what's happening on the inside. So we're happy that you did that research for us.
Wrap-Up And How To Reach Us
SPEAKER_00But Judd I know you're in the retirement phase um Judd is is doing you know having lots of trips and traveling um so he's not around too much often anymore but if you have any questions on anything calf care related or calf nutrition you can contact myself at the Lancaster County Extension office at 7173946851. And you can contact anyone on the dairy team as well who can get any type of information. And we have lots of Judd research and lots of Judd articles that we can share with you. So Judd thanks for joining us today I hope you have a great rest of your day even though the sun is not shining here either hopefully you can get out and and do some things that are fun this afternoon.
SPEAKER_01Well thank you so much for asking me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah have a great day okay