Calf feeding management

Calves generally refer to calves from birth to weaning (usually weaned at the age of 6-8 months). This growth and development stage is the fastest period in the life of cattle. Therefore, it is necessary to do a good job in the feeding and management of calves. The following is the calf feeding management I have carefully arranged for you. Let's have a look.

Calf feeding management

1 Nursing care of newborn calves

After the calf is born 1 hour

1) Let the calf breathe. After the calf is born, it is necessary to peel the placenta first and remove the mucus in the mouth and nostrils; If the calf has difficulty breathing, lift the hind leg and pat the chest to make the mucus flow out of the mouth until you hear the calf's cry, and then wipe the mucus in the mouth with a cloth.

2) The umbilical cord is broken. Cut the umbilical cord of calf with sterile surgical scissors at a distance of 10~ 15 cm, and disinfect it with iodine to prevent umbilical cord infection.

3) sign up. It is necessary to put ear tags on calves in time, establish files and register them to avoid registration errors after mixing. Registration requires professional and technical personnel to operate.

4) Feeding colostrum. The milk secreted by cows in postpartum 1 ~ 7 days is called colostrum, which contains high levels of protein, lysozyme, antibody, magnesium salt, vitamin A and so on. These substances greatly promote the excretion of meconium and the immunity of calves. Calves should be fed 1 kg colostrum after birth, and then eat 1 kg colostrum after 5 ~ 6 hours; If calves can't eat colostrum within 24 hours, their resistance (especially the resistance of calves to Escherichia coli) will be greatly reduced, which will easily lead to calf diarrhea and even death. The colostrum feeding amount of calves is 3~4 kg/d (depending on individual size), and it is fed three times a day; The milk temperature must be controlled at 36~38℃, and lower or higher than this temperature will have adverse effects on calves.

5) isolated feeding. After the calf is registered, it should be separated from the cow to prevent the cow from accidentally injuring the calf. Conditional pastures or farmers had better adopt single-column feeding; If the space is spacious, you can also use a small cowshed, hang a signboard next to the shed (in case the breeder remembers wrong), and pad the shed with filler. This can avoid the spread of diseases among calves, reduce the incidence of calves, improve their survival rate and make calves grow rapidly (generally, it is better to raise calves in cowshed for 3 months).

After the calf is born 1 week

It is best for calves to remove their horns after birth 1 week, so as not to hurt each other or breeders when they grow up. There are two ways to remove the horns of calves.

1) iron. After the calf is fixed, wet the hair around the corner with a wet towel, and put the burnt electric soldering iron on the head of the calf for more than ten seconds until the tissue at the corner turns bronze; Ten minutes after the corner is removed, apply purple potion. This method requires at least 3 people to operate together, 2 people to fix the calf, 1 individual operation.

2) deburring with sodium hydroxide. Repair the calf. First, cut the area 3 cm around the small horn, disinfect it with 5% iodine, and apply vaseline oil around it (to prevent drugs from flowing into the eyes or burning the surrounding skin). Technicians put on anti-corrosion gloves, mix sodium hydroxide and starch at the ratio of 1.5: 1, add a little water, make it into paste, and then apply it to the small horn (about 2 cm thick); After coating, put a preservative on it and wrap it with gauze to avoid falling on the small cow head; Separate the calf with long horns from other cows. After about 1 week, the scab on the smear site will fall off by itself, and the corner removal is successful.

Two weeks after the calf is born

1) cultivate good hygiene habits. After birth 1 week, the frequency of defecation and urination will continue to increase, so calves need to be trained to defecate and urinate at fixed points; The breeder should often change the padding in the calf shed or cage every day to make the shed clean and the air fresh.

2) Observe the condition. First, take your temperature regularly. Normal calf body temperature is 38.5~39.5℃, 40℃ is low fever, 40~4 1℃ is moderate fever, and 4 1~42℃ is high fever. Measure and record the body temperature every day, and find out the reason if there is fever in cattle. The second is to measure the heartbeat and breathing times. The normal heartbeat of newborn calves is 120~ 180 beats/min, and the normal breathing is 20~50 beats/min. The third is to observe feces and mental state. Calves defecate 1~2 times a day, which is yellowish brown. Any watery stool, mucus stool and bloody stool are all manifestations of calf disease, so you should seek veterinary treatment in time. Observe the mental state of calves every day, and check and treat them in time if any abnormality is found.

3) Breastfeeding. Newborn calves can freely collect routine milk after being fed colostrum. Milk fed to calves must be produced by healthy cows, and milk produced by sick cows or cows suffering from mastitis must never be used. The milk feeding amount of calves should be 3~5 kg, which can be adjusted according to individual size; The temperature of milk should be 36~39℃, preferably 37~38℃. If the temperature can't reach, you can use a large pot to heat it; If you feed alone, you can heat it in a water bath. The feeding management of calves must be followed? People, time, temperature, quantity? The four principles of.

2 calves weaned

The weaning time of dairy calves should consider the newborn weight and feed supply of calves, and generally the weaning time is about 2 months old. If weaning is too early and nutrition can't keep up, it will affect the growth of calves, and calves are prone to illness; If weaning is too late, it will not only increase the feeding cost, but also affect the rumen development and later growth of calves.

When calves are 20~30 days old, they begin to feed concentrate. The method is as follows: after feeding, sprinkle a small amount of concentrate in the milk bucket or basin for them to lick, so as to promote the calves to form the habit of eating concentrate. The daily intake of calf feed is: 1 200~300 g at the age of month, 1.5~2.0 g at the age of month, 400 ~ 500 g.

Supplementing high-quality hay and green juicy feed at the age of 20: Leguminosae hay as the main green juicy feed, carrots and beets as the main green juicy feed, training to eat freely, promoting the development of rumen and omentum, and also promoting the development of the whole digestive organ; The amount of complementary food should be determined according to age and individual size, and not too much green and juicy feed.

When calves reach the age of 50~60 days, they can eat 1 kg concentrate and a small amount of hay and green juicy feed every day, and then they can be weaned.

Management of calves after weaning

In order to achieve the training goal of weaned calves, management should be carried out in the following aspects: First, weaned calves should be fed in groups, and calves with similar month age and weight should be divided into one group. 2. After weaning, calves should continue to be fed with starter and growth feed before weaning, and the feeding time of starter should not be less than 2 weeks; After feeding the growth-promoting diet, the content of protein in the diet should be no less than 16% until the age of 6 months. Thirdly, with the growth of calf's month age, it is necessary to gradually increase the feed of high-quality roughage and choose high-quality hay, such as alfalfa. Fourth, it is best not to feed the newly weaned calves with silage or yellow storage feed, and calves can be fed in small amounts when they are over 4 months old. Fifth, when weaning, we must do a good job in the hygiene of the calf shed. If the conditions are too bad, it will lead to calf illness and even death. The correct way is: first, feed according to weight on time. Calves were fed in milk cans within 5 ~ 7 hours after birth to establish esophageal groove reflex; Calves after 7 days of age can drink milk in small barrels or milk basins under the guidance of breeders. If it is not fed in time, it may cause calf to choke on milk and cause foreign body pneumonia, or milk may avoid esophageal groove and enter rumen and cause rumen air expansion. Therefore, in the feeding process, the bucket or milk basin can be raised and tilted to avoid choking injury caused by the whole nose of the calf being inserted into the milk, and the esophageal groove can be completely closed. 2. Calves can eat and drink freely 7 hours after delivery, replace colostrum with ordinary milk or milk replacer, feed regularly and quantitatively every day until weaning, and pay attention to the cleanliness of feed trough.

Problems existing in calf feeding management

When calves are born, the respiratory tract is easily blocked by bovine body fluids. At this time, the breeder should clean the mucus in his nasal cavity and upper respiratory system as soon as possible. For a calf that has vomited and suffocated, you can lift its hind legs to make it stand on its head, and then pat its chest to make it spit out mucus. For the mucus on the calf, dry it manually or lick it with a cow as soon as possible. In winter, we should immediately dry the mucus on calves with cloth and transfer it to a warm and clean calf house as soon as possible to prevent calf pneumonia caused by wet and cold. However, some breeders can't squeeze the blood out of the umbilical cord quickly after the calf is born, so that the umbilical cord can't dry normally and fall off naturally. At the same time, they do not pay attention to maintaining environmental hygiene, leading to symptoms of umbilical cord inflammation.

Improper colostrum feeding method

The colostrum secreted by cows after production has high nutritional value and is rich in protein. Magnesium salts, minerals and multivitamins can greatly promote the immunity and meconium excretion of calves, but some breeders do not pay attention to let calves eat colostrum at birth. If you can't eat 2 ~ 3 kilograms of colostrum within 1 ~ 2 hours after birth, calves will lose their resistance to many pathogens, especially Escherichia coli, which will easily lead to diarrhea and death. Colostrum daily feed is about 65438+ 0/7 of body weight, three times a day, and the temperature should be fixed regularly, quantitatively and at a constant temperature.

The environment of calf shed is not clean.

Some units did not set up a calf island to raise calves alone within two months after the calf was born, so it is impossible to know whether the newborn calves have disease resistance. In addition, breeders did not actively create a suitable growth environment for calves, and did not pay attention to warmth and cold protection in winter and ventilation and heatstroke prevention in summer. In fact, the temperature of calf barn should be kept at 24 ~ 26℃, and the humidity should be kept below 30%. It should be disinfected twice a week and cleaned and replaced in time to prevent the breeding of viruses, bacteria and parasites. In addition, we should pay attention to the hygiene of calves and popularize the cleaning technology of calves.

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