{"id":3017,"date":"2022-05-16T11:02:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T01:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=3017"},"modified":"2022-04-29T11:04:14","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T01:04:14","slug":"abstracts-a-survey-of-calf-rearing-practices-in-the-south-west-region-of-western-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=3017","title":{"rendered":"Abstracts: A survey of calf rearing practices in the south-west region of Western Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aims: <\/strong>To gather data on the calf management and rearing practices of a subset of dairy farmers in the south-west region of Western Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Methods: <\/strong>A 30-minute face-to-face survey was conducted with dairy cattle producers in the south-west region of Western Australia from April-June 2019 to determine pre-weaning calf rearing practices. Participation was voluntary, using a self-selected subset of dairy farmers registered with a regional extension group. The questionnaire assessed three broad categories: farm demographics, colostrum harvesting and management and calf rearing practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Results: <\/strong>The study response rate was 34\/140 (24 per cent). The following key areas were identified where there were deviations from recognised best practice: Precalving: no transition diet was fed pre-calving on 4\/34 (12 per cent) of farms, and on a further 5\/34 (15 per cent) it was fed for less than 3 weeks; mixing of heifers and adult cows in the calving paddocks occurred in 24\/34 (70 per cent) of the farms, with 15 per cent (5\/34) of the farms using calving induction. During calving 14\/34 (41 per cent) of the farms did not disinfect navels of new-born calves; although 23\/34 farmers stated that they collected calves within 6 hours of birth, data on frequency of calf pick-up (2\/34 did not separate calves and dams and 19\/34 picked up only once per day) indicated that on 21\/34 farms (62 per cent) the reality was that calves were picked up >12 hours after birth. Colostrum quality was not assessed appropriately on 18\/34 (53 per cent) farms and farmers overestimated how soon after birth it was administered: 23\/34 (68 per cent) reported feeding it within 6 hours of calving, despite 62 per cent picking up calves >12 hours after calving. Regarding calf rearing practices, no pain relief before or after dehorning was used on 20\/34 (59 per cent) farms, calf bedding was removed infrequently (<weekly) on 26\/35 (76 per cent) farms and appropriate isolation of sick calves was only reported by 14\/34 (41 per cent) farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion and clinical relevance: <\/strong>Although limited by the low response rate, this is the first survey of dairy calf rearing practices in the south-western region of Western Australia. We found evidence of at least one process inconsistent with industry best-practice on 34\/140 (24 per cent) of responding farms and all farms had more than one sub-optimal calf rearing practice. This highlights the need to improve calf rearing in this region and identifies key areas of deficiency for further study and extension to producers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J W Aleri<\/a> <\/sup>1<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>2<\/sup><\/a>, A D Fisher<\/a> <\/sup>3<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>4<\/sup><\/a>, J Gogoi-Tiwari<\/a> <\/sup>1<\/sup><\/a>, F K Waichigo<\/a> <\/sup>5<\/sup><\/a>, H R Sodagari<\/a> <\/sup>1<\/sup><\/a>, P C Irons<\/a> <\/sup>1<\/sup><\/a>, I D Robertson<\/a> <\/sup>1<\/sup><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NZ Vet J<\/em>. 2022 Mar 7; 1-7.doi: 10.1080\/00480169.2022.2042413. Online ahead of print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/sup>School of Veterinary Medicine, College of Science, Health, Engineering and Education, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2<\/sup>Centre for Animal Production and Health, Future Foods Institute, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3<\/sup>Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, University of Melbourne, Werribee, Victoria, Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4<\/sup>Animal Welfare Science Centre, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Parkville, Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5<\/sup>Brunswick Veterinary Services, Brunswick Junction, WA, Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aims: To gather data on the calf management and rearing practices of a subset of dairy farmers in the south-west region of Western Australia. Methods: A 30-minute face-to-face survey was conducted with dairy cattle producers in the south-west region of Western Australia from April-June 2019 to determine pre-weaning calf rearing practices. Participation was voluntary, using a self-selected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,2336,2337,55,2335],"class_list":["post-3017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abstracts","tag-abstracts-2","tag-calf-rearing","tag-dairy-cattle","tag-research","tag-western-australia"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":3,"name":"Abstracts","slug":"abstracts","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":237,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":237,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Abstracts","category_nicename":"abstracts","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"Aims: To gather data on the calf management and rearing practices of a subset of dairy farmers in the south-west region of Western Australia. Methods: A 30-minute face-to-face survey was conducted with dairy cattle producers in the south-west region of Western Australia from April-June 2019 to determine pre-weaning calf rearing practices. Participation was voluntary, using a self-selected subset of dairy farmers registered..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"3":{"name":"Abstracts","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=3"}},"tags_names":{"54":{"name":"abstracts","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=abstracts-2"},"2336":{"name":"calf rearing","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=calf-rearing"},"2337":{"name":"dairy cattle","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=dairy-cattle"},"55":{"name":"research","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=research"},"2335":{"name":"Western Australia","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=western-australia"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3018,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3017\/revisions\/3018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}