The Moos Room™

00;00;12;27 - 00;00;37;19
Brad
Welcome to the Moose Room. It's actually raining here in western Minnesota, which is quite a surprise. It seems like it's been raining for a few days. We're done with corn silage. We did finish earlier this week, so we actually did pretty good. We're getting somewhere between 25 and 28 tons per acre. So it's been a good year, at least for us because we had some early rains in the spring.

00;00;37;19 - 00;01;02;20
Brad
But alas, we got a lot of feed up. We'll be doing well. We're actually starting our calving season now, so we're well into calving probably 15 so far, and we've had a few Angus born purebred Angus calves, some beef on dairy calves coming along. So we'll be doing some comparisons of those and talking more about those. So we're really excited.

00;01;02;20 - 00;01;23;07
Brad
At least I'm excited about trying to compare some of these beef on dairy crosses and trying to figure out what's going on in the calf world today. I wanted to talk a little bit more about some of the calf stuff as well. Was just a recent study that I saw that I thought was kind of interesting, and talks a little bit more about calves and colostrum.

00;01;23;07 - 00;01;53;10
Brad
So this study was done by Dave Casper out of Illinois, who has a calf ranch that he does some studies with different companies, things like that, but they really were looking at total serum protein concentration in Holstein sale barn calves. And that's kind of where the story started. So really it was trying to align colostrum management with kind of economic value in male dairy cows.

00;01;53;10 - 00;02;20;08
Brad
And we know that male dairy calves in the past have not really been treated the same as heifer calves. You kind of maybe feed colostrum. Some farms maybe did mid-day didn't. It kind of really depends on what has been happening in some of those dairies. But this study really wanted to look at it. So really, you know, colostrum is sort of the big thing that I think we need to pay attention to a lot.

00;02;20;09 - 00;02;43;14
Brad
And we're trying to do that as well. We're taking total serum proteins on all of our calves related to heifer calves. And these Angus cross calves and the beef on dairy crosses, just to see how well either our dry cow program is going or what sort of level are we getting enough colostrum in these calves, or how well that is going?

00;02;43;14 - 00;03;14;06
Brad
Because obviously colostrum is really building that functional immune system that we have. And if we measure total serum proteins, we can really see how well our programs are doing. You know, some farms, it really depends. Some farms are taking total serum proteins. Some are not. I think it's really easy. And we use a refractometer to do that. We use a digital one that we've had for almost ten years or more.

00;03;14;08 - 00;03;46;10
Brad
Take a blood sample on a calf. And I know sometimes that can be a daunting exercise as well, but it can be quite easy. You can get some blood tubes and needles from a veterinarian and just take a little blood sample from the the jugular vein of a calf, and you can spin it if you have a centrifuge or you can let it sit, it'll separate out, or you get some tubes that can separate the serum from the blood, and you can test the total serum proteins in these calves to see if they had adequate passive transfer.

00;03;46;12 - 00;04;11;28
Brad
Obviously, you know, we think about it from a heifer calf standpoint and a male calf standpoint. You know, with heifers, obviously we really think about colostrum management and total serum protein a little bit more because it really affects milk production. It can be monitored very well. Sometimes total serum proteins have not been as high as what we would have liked in the dairy world.

00;04;11;28 - 00;04;37;10
Brad
And sometimes they can be high, sometimes it can be really low, but it does affect milk production. We're talking about some of the death loss that they saw in these bull calves in this study. And it really comes down to the the bull calves really aren't paid a lot of attention to because they're sold a lot quickly at auctions or sold to other farms.

00;04;37;12 - 00;04;58;21
Brad
Sometimes the colostrum volume is fed at a much lower rate. They're not fed like a heifer calf and it's really not tested. So they might get poor quality colostrum as well. There hasn't been any real recommendations for bull calves as far as colostrum and how you should feed them. I think we should treat all of the calves the same.

00;04;58;21 - 00;05;16;29
Brad
I think they should be fed like the heifer calves, and that's what we try to do at our research center is to feed all of the calves the same. They get the first colostrum from their mom, we test the bricks level and they get transition milk as well. So our calves tend to be quite healthy when we do that.

00;05;17;02 - 00;05;45;28
Brad
And if you just put a little extra effort, it doesn't really affect them too much. So let's get into the study. And what did they do. So they sourced about 1300 Holstein male calves and they all came from Wisconsin sale barns. So basically they were from Wisconsin dairy operations and they were Holstein bull calves. They were marketed through several local livestock auctions.

00;05;46;00 - 00;06;10;22
Brad
And so these calves were co-mingled from numerous Wisconsin dairy operations. Obviously, they were taken back to Illinois where they were done with research studies, but they didn't really know what these calves were done with. You know, they were kind of wet calves. They were assumed to have been fed colostrum at the dairy operations, but they didn't really know what would happen.

00;06;10;22 - 00;06;55;22
Brad
They really didn't know actual birth dates as well. They just got calves on a weekly basis. And these calves traveled some distances of, let's see, 200 to 350km, so 100 miles to 200 miles. They were transported from these livestock auction markets in Wisconsin. They were vaccinated when they arrived at, at the Calf Ranch and were treated with some a liquid drench that contained some, boils and different things to help them grow.

00;06;55;25 - 00;07;23;24
Brad
But we're going to talk about colostrum. So, the study was from six years. So 2020 to 2025. It was across 19 experiments. And the typical age at sale was 2 to 5 days. And that's kind of what they figured out. There could be a nine day window. But the so they tested serum total proteins in all of these calves when they arrived.

00;07;23;27 - 00;07;53;01
Brad
And the average was 5.4 for all of these calves. Now a lot of people might go 5.4. That's horrible. You know, I think a lot of people in the dairy world would think 5.5 or greater is kind of what we shoot for, and it might be six. Now, I think I've talked about total serum proteins before, and I think less than five is bad, and greater than five is usually pretty good.

00;07;53;08 - 00;08;18;29
Brad
Obviously you'd like it to be higher than that. Six is excellent if you kind of look at serum total protein ranges we think about pour faire good and excellent. So poor tends to be less than 5.1 kind of an industry target is less than 10% of the calves would fall here. Fair 5.2 to 5.7. About 20% of the calves we would want to fall here.

00;08;19;02 - 00;08;47;22
Brad
Good 5.8 to 6.1 and excellent is greater than 6.2 on a serum total protein. Now the industry target would be about 40% of the calves. We would want to be excellent. So higher than 6.2 40% of the Cavs. Well it was kind of opposite of what you would expect. So 33% of the calves were poor. So less than 5.1.

00;08;47;22 - 00;09;28;02
Brad
So you had 1300 calves 33% is of 350 calves. Basically out of these 1300 are terrible for serum total proteins. And that's alarming. Definitely fair. 38% were 5.2 to 5.7. So we have almost 70% of the calves were fair. So less than 5.7. So 70% where is the industry target would be 30%. So we were much greater levels of fair and poor on these camps.

00;09;28;06 - 00;10;06;04
Brad
But what about the good. Excellent. So we want to target about 40% of those calves over 6.2, but in reality only 16% were excellent of these male cabs. So more than 70% of the male Holstein bull calves that arrived at sale barns were in the poor or fair category, which drastically misses the benchmark for really basic survival. Obviously, we see a wide range of serum total proteins.

00;10;06;07 - 00;10;39;25
Brad
They ranged from 2.8, which is really bad, to 8.6. So there is a wide range, but there was just more calves in the poor and fair quality. So we might think that these wide ranges might prove that colostrum supplementation for male bull calves is really inconsistent across dairy operations. And I would kind of agree with that. It's not very consistent at all for these bull cabs.

00;10;39;25 - 00;11;06;02
Brad
And that's the the scary part. And we don't really know what's going on with these beef on dairy cross calves. That might be a different story as well. And something that people will look at into the future. And I may have talked about some of that before. And in some episodes we're talking about these dairy beef on crosses in Canada, but they really fall short when we're trying to figure out what's happening.

00;11;06;04 - 00;11;45;01
Brad
The good news is, is that the mean serum total protein was kind of rising across the year. So it rose from about 4.9 average to 5.62 across the six years of this study, which really proved that dairy operations were improving across time. However, without some real direct financial incentives, they really still fall drastically short of the standard recommendations that we would like to see, which would be about 5.8 and 40% of the calves would be much higher than that.

00;11;45;03 - 00;12;23;29
Brad
So they looked at death loss across these calves as well. And what happens in each of these categories? Well, calves that were arriving with poor passive immunity were nearly 12 times more likely to die. And that was almost entirely within the first two weeks of life. So high death rate in calves that were poor serum total protein overall death rate was about 4%, which is still in my mind to high.

00;12;24;02 - 00;12;46;17
Brad
I, I want it to be less than 1%. I just we we have not much of an issue but I understand some some places are different. But I like death rate less than 1%. But in this study 4% death Ross calves that were in the excellent total serum protein 3.8%. So right about average, so very low death rate.

00;12;46;17 - 00;13;21;09
Brad
If the serum total protein was high, now we get down to the poor 45% death loss. That's crazy. So you have almost 50% death loss for those calves that have a serum total protein of less than five and 33% of the calves in this study were less than five, and 50% of those, almost 50% of those died. So that's kind of crazy fare, 36% death loss good, 15%.

00;13;21;11 - 00;13;50;02
Brad
So in the poor and the fare categories, we see 40% death loss. Frankly, that's too high, actually way too high of a death loss. And colostrum quality is playing too much of a role in that. So it really causes issues. And so that kind of led to some of the conclusions that the market is really disconnected because dairies are not being rewarded for investing in these male calves.

00;13;50;05 - 00;14;20;18
Brad
And really buyers can't protect themselves from the risks. So the buyers are blind calves blindly and absorbing a 45% death loss in poor calves, whereas the farmers are not being paid for that. So there's this kind of disconnect that's happening in the market and it's really invisible. And that's that's kind of the sad part. But really so what what can we do really?

00;14;20;20 - 00;14;52;07
Brad
Well, obviously you want to be able to test serum proteins. And so for the buyer of these calves hopefully you can buy with confidence maybe knowing where those calves came from so you can know what the source is to try and have good colostrum quality coming from that dairy. And for the seller, obviously, hopefully we can get a premium for those calves that we can be used for verified colostrum management, which is a big return on investment.

00;14;52;07 - 00;15;20;25
Brad
So by testing for serum total protein concentrations at the auction before the sale, we might create some sort of transparent biological ledger. And that obviously comes with some issues because now you're testing calves at the sales barn. And who's going to pay for that, and will you get a premium for that? But really testing these calves up to nine days of age is reliable.

00;15;20;25 - 00;16;02;01
Brad
It's fast, it's simple. And it really helps convert some health into a measurable premium or future investment. So obviously we would like to dairy to invest in these calves to make sure that male calves receive adequate high quality concentrations of colostrum. Obviously it would be nice to have sales barn verify total serum protein as good or excellent, because then the buyer receives a premium and the they would know that their death loss is going to drop from 45% to 4%.

00;16;02;03 - 00;16;21;17
Brad
And then there's some financial benefits to everybody. Because the dairy receives more, the buyer receives more financial interest because they don't have this high death loss. So really I think everybody wins when we have testing some sort of total serum proteins.

00;16;21;19 - 00;16;50;10
Brad
So in the end, we know that we should measure total serum proteins because health is really verifiable and we have hidden economic costs. We have mortality problems with poor calves, but we can really reduce that if we treat our colostrum program. We have high quality colostrum being fed to these calves and we can reduce mortality rate. Definitely. So these male calves are an underutilized asset in the beef supply chain.

00;16;50;17 - 00;17;19;28
Brad
Really. By implementing these total serum proteins, the industry can really close the management gap and reward excellence in colostrum feeding programs. So with that, I hope you learned a little bit about colostrum feeding and what's going on in the beef world and Holstein calf market as far as total serum proteins, and how you might use those in your herd to create more value and not have such a high def loss.

00;17;20;00 - 00;17;39;07
Brad
So with that, I think we'll leave that for today. And if you have any comments, questions, or scathing rebuttals, feel free to contact me at the Moose Room. That's MOS or M at Edu, or find us on the web at University of Minnesota Livestock Extension or, WC Rock dairy. And with that, I hope you have a great week by.