Reducing Calf Mortality

Calf mortality is a worldwide animal welfare problem and can be very costly for the farmer. The incidence rate is between 2-20% with the majority of farms experiencing calf mortality of 5-8%.
Numerous studies show that a well-developed calving management strategy of monitoring and handling calving and the first year of the calf’s life can help dramatically decrease calf mortality.
Calf mortality is a multifactorial problem, which may be handled by focusing on some very critical points in time over the first year of the calf’s life: