DAIRY NEWS – There is no “one size fits all” approach to successfully raising dairy calves. Each farm must adapt the latest research, management practices and technologies to their facilities, size and team expertise to provide the best care for the youngest members of their herd. The 2023 Calf Care Connection® workshops presented by Professional Dairy Producers® (PDPW) will give attendees the opportunity to tour calf facilities and learn from experts and their peers to gain new ideas for their own operation.
Three repeating one-day sessions of PDPW’s Calf Care Connection are scheduled from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on October 17 at Arlington Research Station, Arlington, Wis.; Oct. 18 at Agricultural Heritage & Resources Farm, Kewaunee, Wis.; and Oct. 19 at Chippewa Valley Tech College Energy Education Center, Eau Claire, Wis. Each day will feature three breakout sessions facilitated by leading experts, followed by lunch and two farm tours. Simultaneous Spanish translation will be provided for the entire program.
“The Calf Care Connection workshops bring the best of several worlds for calf care managers, feeders and team members, giving them the opportunity to learn from leading researchers, forward-thinking peers and fellow attendees,” said Cassandra Strupp, PDPW program manager. “Sharing ideas and insights throughout the day is extremely valuable and ensures that everyone who attends takes home a few ideas they can put to work on their dairy right away.”
On Tuesday, Oct. 17, attendees will tour:
- Blue Star Dairy Farms, where 80 to 90 heifers each month are raised in two 119-stall barns connected by an enclosed breeze way
- Jazzy Jerseys, at which all heifer and bull calves are reared from birth to weaning in a 216-stall barn with four bays that are deep cleaned between each cycle of calves
On Wednesday, Oct. 18, attendees will tour:
- Hall’s Calf Ranch, a replacement-heifer raiser for 27 different dairies, with 5,000 calves in hutches and 3,800 in barns. The operation also serves as a depot center for beef and Holstein bull calves.
- Pagels Ponderosa, where they raise 3,600 calves a month from a young age through eleven months of age in a barn facility.
On Thursday, Oct. 19, attendees will tour:
- Solhawk Dairy, which raises 100 heifers per month by rearing calves in hutches for the first two months, then transitioning them to a calf barn.
- Triple T Farms, at which a retrofitted-stanchion barn featuring automatic feeders is used to raise 15 heifers a month. Calves are housed separately until five days old, then moved to a group feeder.
Presenters for the morning breakout sessions include Dr. Noah Litherland, PhD, dairy technical specialist for Vita Plus; Dr. Sylvia Kehoe, PhD, professor of dairy science at University of Wisconsin-River Falls; and Dr. Ryan Breuer, DVM, DACVIM-LAIM, diagnostic case and outreach coordinator at the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and clinical assistant professor at UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.
Learn more about the Calf Care Connection and register your team by visiting www.pdpw.org or contacting PDPW at 800-947-7379. Follow along digitally in advance of and during the event by following @dairyPDPW and using #mypdpw on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Calf Care Connection is an accredited training and offers up to 4.25 Dairy AdvanCE® continuing education units (CEUs) each day. To learn more or secure credits, visit www.DairyAdvance.org. Up to 5.0 CEU credits are available to American Registry of Professional Scientists (ARPAS) members.
Professional Dairy Producers® (PDPW) is the nation’s largest dairy producer-led organization of its kind, focusing on producer professionalism, stakeholder engagement and unified outreach to share ideas, solutions, resources and experiences that help dairy producers succeed.
