Each region of the U.S. presents its own challenges with raising calves, with the varying landscapes often dictating the layout of calf facilities. While available space, climate extremes, labor and water availability will play a different role in each farm’s setup, there are a few factors that farmers across the country can all consider.
Ben Ekern, Midwest Regional Manager for Calf-Tel, says it’s important to establish specific goals. He says if a farmer has a goal of feeding calves three times per day to achieve a certain amount of growth per calf, that goal cascades down through a number of different variables to consider when sending calves off-site or planning to raise them on their own.
Ekern also cites cleanliness and ventilation as keys to success. “Probably the number one contributing factor to healthy calves is healthy lungs. Most producers will probably agree that the best way to raise a healthy calf is outside, on the ground, in a hutch. This allows plenty of access to fresh air, and hutches make it easy to keep dangerous bioburdens away from the calf,” he says. “That said, we see a tremendous amount of success from our customers who raise calves in calf barns, and that success comes because cleanliness and ventilation are a priority in their design.”
Abe and Katrina Cobb of Perkins, OK have implemented both hutches and barns into their calf raising program. With a milking herd of 40, they have between 12 and 17 calves in hutches at a time, from birth to three months. Katrina then weans, halter breaks and moves groups of four at a time into a sand pack barn.
The Cobbs designed and built just about everything on their farm themselves, with cooling and comfort as a priority. “We’ve got a 300-foot-long area on grass where our hutches are,” Katrina says. “They’re bedded with straw, and after a calf moves out, the hutch is sanitized and moved. Because we’ve got so much space for the hutches, there’s adequate time for grass to grow back before the next calf moves in.”
With year-round heat, the Cobbs have an additional measure of comfort with their hutches: a shade cloth. After posting a photo of their design on social media, Katrina heard from several other farmers who couldn’t believe they hadn’t seen anything like it before.
“Your whole life you’ve been taught hutches are good enough, but I’ve been in a hutch when it’s 100 degrees, and it’s not comfortable,” Katrina says. “All it is, is a frame we had welded together, with a shade cloth across the top. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s practical and works.” She adds that it can cool off the inside of the hutches by 20 degrees.
According to Ekern, hutch tethers are another addition a lot of farmers make to their calf housing – anchoring it to the ground to prevent against blowing away in the wind. “Wind is a challenge across most regions – especially in the Southwest where 40 mile-per-hour winds are an average day and gusts are even more severe,” he says.
Looking into the future of calf raising, Ekern highlights producers who can accommodate social housing while maximizing labor efficiency and achieving solid growth. “They’ll be utilizing and improving on existing systems, and facilities will have to be able to accommodate substantiated trends and regulatory requirements. And, lots and lots of fresh air.”
