Your Guide to Raising Healthy Beef Calves

Calf health begins at breeding

Producers should recognize that calf health starts at bull choice, explained John B. Hall, Ph.D., PAS, a University of Idaho professor and extension beef specialist. Selecting bulls that produce offspring with proper birth weights increases calf survivability and dam reproductive performance.

“This is especially important for first calf heifers,” he said. “In a mature herd, they can handle larger calves with fewer complications.”

Dystocia, or calving difficulty, is the top reason for calf death for three reasons:

• Increased infectious disease risk.
• Increased chances a calf is unable to maintain a healthy body temperature.
• Decreased passive transfer and absorption of antibodies.

Calves that survive a difficult birth may struggle to achieve desired weight gains compared to their peers, ultimately impacting profitability over time. 

Dystocia can also impact dam health with the potential to decrease her fertility. Establishing a relationship with a veterinarian can help you know what to look for, develop a calf management protocol and treatment strategy to improve the likelihood of recovery.

Providing a clean calving environment

Keeping new calves in the cleanest environment as much as possible helps reduce the chance of disease. One choice is known as the Sand Hills calving method, where cows calve in a pasture for seven to 10 days (about 1 and a half weeks). The cow/calf pairs remain in the calving pasture and then pregnant cows are moved to clean pasture to calve, Hall explained. 

“The big cattle operations out west do that, but you need a lot of pastures, and water can sometimes be a challenge in the winter,” he said.

Another choice is to move cow/calf pairs to a clean pasture while leaving pregnant cows together in a separate pasture.

“Depending on how many cows and acres of land you have, it might be difficult to move pairs out,” he said. “But if you can keep them in a cleaner environment when they are young, they are less likely to develop scours.” 

Read more about housing calves >

Looking ahead to successful weaning

Keeping calves in good health is critical to successful weaning. Separating calves from their mothers is stressful, and stress can interfere with an animal’s immunity. In many western states, calves are branded around 45 days (about 1 and a half months) of age and vaccinated with a 7 or 8-way vaccine that covers clostridial and bovine respiratory disease complex. 

“Our calves get vaccinated three times before weaning because we have run into problems with summer pneumonia,” he said. “A lot of producers out here cannot get their hands on calves that often in the summer, so they are vaccinated at branding and weaning. This timing coincides with when calves’ immune system takes over and passive immunity from their mother runs out. Ideally, vaccines should be given two weeks prior to weaning but if that is not possible, administering them at weaning is better than not at all.”