Over the last 25 yr, extensive research has been conducted on the biology, nutrition, and management of dairy cows during the transition from gestation to lactation. The focus of this research has been to minimize the occurrence of health problems around parturition and to maximize subsequent milk production. Very little attention has been paid to potential effects of different nutritional prog...

The longstanding assumption that calves of more than 6 months of age are more resistant to Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) infection has recently been challenged. In order to elucidate this, a challenge experiment was performed to evaluate age- and dose-dependent susceptibility to MAP infection in dairy calves. Fifty-six calves from MAP-negative dams were randomly allocate...

The objectives of this study were to determine incidence of stillbirths and heifer-calf morbidity and mortality, and their association with dystocia on 3 Colorado dairies. A total of 7,380 calvings produced 7,788 calves on 3 Colorado dairy operations between October 1, 2001, and November 5, 2002. Dystocia score and calf status (alive vs. dead) were recorded at calving. Calves that were born ali...

Abstract Neonatal and weaning periods are the most challenging phases for enteric infections in dairy calves. While different approaches used to minimize calf health issues, neonatal diet remains core approach enhance pre- post-weaning animal performance. Previous studies have shown that bioactive compounds, including oligosaccharides present of calves, enhanced their growth performance post-we...

Weaning of dairy calves is an early life husbandry management practice which involves the changeover from a liquid to a solid feed based diet. The objectives of the study were to use RNA-seq technology to examine the effect of (i) breed and (ii) gradual weaning, on the whole blood mRNA transcriptome of artificially reared Holstein-Friesian and Jersey calves. The calves were gradually weaned ove...

This experiment was designed to determine the effects of Colostrometer tested colostrum on the total serum protein (TP) of Holstein heifer calves. The experiment was performed on a working dairy where 40 50% of the heifer calves had been dying because of poor colostrum quality. For three months, May 12, 1999 through August 10, 1999, the heifer calves born were fed 4 L of first colostrum through...

This study was conducted to determine the effect of feeding high milk volumes on the growth rate, health and cross-sucking behaviour in group-fed Jersey calves. Three-day-old heifers (n = 120) in a seasonal calving dairy herd were randomly assigned to one of 6 treatment groups. Three groups received high milk volumes (HMV), consisting of ad libitum milk or milk replacer feeding twice a day, whi...

The object of this study was to determine the effect of prepartum supplementation of vitamin E with or without injective vitamin E and selenium (Se) on productive and reproductive performances and immune function in dairy cows. Sixty multiparous Holstein dairy cows were divided randomly into three groups at the end of gestation. Cows in each group received one of three treatments: (1) a single ...