Separation anxiety

It was tough for Chuck Draxler to let his babies go: Would they be well cared for? Fed properly? Given a clean, comfortable place to live? Vaccinated against terrible diseases? Come back alive? And would it all cost more than it was worth?

At first, Draxler was dead set against the idea of sending the day-old calves from JCJ Dairy, Hanford, Calif., to a calf ranch. But his brother, John, and dad, Jack, finally persuaded him to look into it.

That was two years ago, when the three were expanding from 600 milking cows to 800. Chuck had been caring for the baby calves—feeding, bedding, vaccinating—and he was feeding the milking herd as well.

It was easy to see that he couldn't possibly have time to do an effective job with everything. So they hired a person to help.

"It wasn't working out," says Chuck. "If we found somebody good, all they wanted to do was raise calves. But it didn't take all day to raise calves on an 800-cow dairy."

So Chuck went back to doing everything himself. Then, the death rate started increasing. They started feeding twice a day instead of once, with no improvement. "We got some kind of disease in the hutches that we couldn't seem to curtail or identify. We disinfected the pens—nothing helped. Our calf death rate rose from 5% to 7% to 12% to 15%, which was pretty substantial."

But when pressed to check out the calf ranch option, Chuck's response was: "Too expensive! I could just see that check going off every month. You've got to be kidding—you mean they want how much a day?"

But John and Jack were insistent, and in the meantime, the calves kept dying. So Chuck reluctantly agreed.

There are nine calf ranches in the area. He started his search by asking the best information source available—his fellow producers who sent their calves off to a ranch. He asked questions about calf care, housing, death rate, how many days per week calves were picked up, cost per head per day, feed quality and—most importantly—was the service really worth the money?

"I narrowed it down to two guys and it was a toss up," Chuck says. Then came the ultimate test. Chuck wanted to see for himself that there were no shortcuts being taken at the calf ranches—even on Sundays and holidays.

"I drove down to Victor Mendes' Calf Ranch one Sunday morning to see what that place looked like: if calves were being taken care of, if people were there doing their jobs—it looked pretty good to me," he says. "We started two days later, Nov. 1, 1995."

Still, Chuck didn't mince words with Mendes. He told Mendes he would try the arrangement for six months, that the calves needed to look good, and that death losses had to be less than 5%.

"Now," grins Chuck, "the death rate is so low [1% to 1.5%], we are having to sell off heifers."

Day-old calves get a 2-qt. feeding of colostrum within the first four hours of life, and just before jumping into the squeaky clean trailer, they get another 2-qt. dose.

The trailer shows up once each day, every day, at the same time.

When calves come back to the dairy at 240 lb., he takes care to make the transition an easy one. Calf feed is formulated with a coccidiostat plus a coccidiostat-preventative pellet for the first five to seven days that the calves are back home. "The best 40 bucks I can spend is on a bag of those pellets," says Chuck.

During that first year, Chuck was over to visit Mendes two or three times. But now he's confident that the calves will come home in great shape. Plus, by the time they reach breeding age, heifers are more uniform. That means fewer heifers have to be held back from breeding.

"It not only gives us better calves, it freed me up to concentrate on feeding and getting the milk out of the cows," reports Draxler.

"Our production has gone up over the past two years from 21,500 lb. fat corrected milk to 23,000 lb. I don't think it is all due to sending calves away, but every bit helps.

"The money I'm spending at the calf ranch is coming back to me. As long as the death rate is kept at the level it is now, I'm definitely making money," he says with confidence.

Sidebar:
A clean start equals a healthy calf

Calves at the Mendes Calf Ranch, Tipton, Calif., get a first-class ride through the first 140 days of their life.

As day olds, they arrive with two colostrum feedings in their bellies and iodine-dipped navels. "Those are the two things I require—colostrum is so important to a baby calf, they must be fed as soon as possible," says Victor Mendes.

Upon arrival, the calves are blood tested for protein levels (which tells how much colostrum they have received) and dehydration. Some colostrum is better than others, and quality will vary by cow and season. If a calf is deficient, Mendes ensures it is brought up to speed with necessary colostrum and fluids.

The calves are settled into one of 6,750 disinfected hutches, given a vaccination of Muse-TSV 2 Salmonella and an extra feeding of powdered colostrum. After that, they drink pasteurized milk and milk replacer as part of a starter ration that adds up to 17.5% protein.

Cleanliness equals quality. So milk the calves drink is checked for bacteria every step of the way using a Mocconkey Plate test. Hospital milk purchased from the calves' home dairies is hauled in one of Mendes' two milk trucks.

The milk is checked for bacteria while it is on the truck, after it's strained through a filter, in the holding tank, after pasteurization, while in the bottle and as it flows out of the nipple. With this detailed information, Mendes knows exactly how clean his equipment is—and where it needs to be cleaner.

"These calves are babies—and bacteria kills them," he says. "I check all my calves personally from day old to 20 days of age every day, and I can tell where my problems are."

Calves are vaccinated five more times before moving into a group corral at 65 to 70 days:

Day 10	Pinkeye
Day 15	BRSV, BVD, IBR, PI3, Haemophilus
Day 30	IBR, PI3
Day 40	BRSV, BVD, IBR, PI3
Day 50	IBR, PI3

After moving into the corrals, calves are scheduled to get one more pinkeye vaccine at day 80. Mendes admits that he's doing a lot of vaccinating, but believes in its effectiveness. He also believes calves coming from herds that vaccinate their dry cows are much better performers than those that don't.

Grouped calves eat a 15.5% protein ration—nearly identical to the hutch ration. But they do receive a little more hay.

To get it all done, Mendes relies on a group of well-trained employees. Employees are very aware of what their jobs are, how to do them and the kind of quality calf everyone in the operation needs to work toward.

"My goal," says Mendes, "is to do the best job I can day in and day out."