05/18/2026
Check out the article penned by Farmer Girl. There are big long term returns for calves that do not realize set backs in their early weeks of life.
For a long time, calf raising has often been viewed by outsiders as the dairy industry’s equivalent of glorified babysitting. Keep the tiny creature alive, feed it, try to prevent it from discovering increasingly creative ways to get sick or injured, and eventually send it off to grow up and become a productive member of the herd. To many people, it can seem like the real economic story does not begin until she enters the milking string. Until then, she is just an expense, a lot of milk powder, some bedding, and an alarming number of bottles that somehow always end up airborne.
Science, however, would like to politely but firmly disagree.
Because it turns out those first two months of life are not simply survival mode. They are not just a holding pattern until weaning. They are, biologically speaking, some of the most critical developmental weeks in that calf’s entire productive future. In other words, while she may currently look like an adorable chaos goblin in a calf coat with questionable decision making skills, her body is already laying down the metabolic and developmental blueprint that may influence her future milk production years later.
Research, particularly from Cornell University and the work of Dr. Fernando Soberon and Dr. Mike Van Amburgh, has shown that preweaning growth rates have a direct correlation with first lactation milk production. More specifically, calves with greater average daily gain in those first 56 to 60 days often go on to produce significantly more milk during their first lactation. For every additional pound of average daily gain during the preweaning period, studies have shown increases of roughly 1,500 to over 2,000 additional pounds of milk in first lactation, depending on herd and management variables.
Read that again.
That extra pound of gain is not just creating a chunkier calf.
It may literally mean thousands more pounds of milk in her future.
So when you are out there mixing bottles, increasing plane of nutrition, obsessing over starter intake, or trying to maximize healthy growth rates, you are not merely growing a calf faster for fun.
You are potentially building a more productive cow.
That bottle you are carrying in freezing weather while questioning your life choices? Future milk tank implications.
That calf aggressively tossing her bottle out because breakfast ended? She may someday financially justify her current dramatic behavior.
Maybe.
Because during these first weeks, calves are developing not just structurally, but hormonally and metabolically. Enhanced nutrition appears to support better mammary gland development, specifically greater mammary parenchymal tissue growth, which is the tissue responsible for future milk production. Essentially, early life nutrition may help determine how much milk producing capacity that calf can ultimately develop.
Which frankly makes calf feeding feel a lot less like daycare and a lot more like long term agricultural infrastructure investment.
Now unfortunately, this is where illness enters the chat.
And as every calf raiser knows, disease has a truly obnoxious habit of showing up exactly when you least need it.
Scours, pneumonia, systemic infections, inflammation, fever, reduced appetite, dehydration, all of these things do far more than simply create short term headaches. When a calf gets sick, her body must redirect nutrients and energy away from growth and development toward immune response and survival. Calories that should be building muscle, tissue, and future milk potential are instead being spent fighting pathogens, controlling inflammation, and repairing damage.
In simpler terms, illness steals resources.
And not just for today.
Research consistently shows that calves experiencing significant preweaning disease often have reduced growth rates, delayed breeding, and lower future milk production potential. Severe respiratory disease can be especially problematic because lung damage, chronic inflammation, and long term setbacks may persist well beyond visible recovery. Scours, depending on severity and duration, can also dramatically reduce nutrient absorption and growth efficiency during one of the most biologically sensitive windows of life.
So every time you are staring down a sick calf, it is not merely about getting her through this week. You may also be protecting her future lactation curve. No pressure.
And then there is antibiotic use, which often gets misunderstood. Antibiotics themselves are not necessarily the direct villain when used properly. In fact, appropriate treatment can absolutely preserve long term outcomes by reducing disease severity. However, calves requiring antibiotic intervention often represent calves who have already experienced enough illness to negatively affect growth and development. So lower future production associated with treated calves is often more reflective of the disease burden itself than the medication.
Translation?
Disease prevention is still king.
Which brings us, as always, back to colostrum.
Excellent colostrum management is not simply about avoiding dead calves. It is about creating stronger immune systems, reducing disease risk, improving growth efficiency, and potentially improving long term production outcomes. Better passive transfer is associated with improved health and stronger first lactation performance, meaning that serum total proteins, immunoglobulin intake, timing, and colostrum quality are not just newborn management details.
They are long term productivity strategy. That refractometer reading? Potential future milk tank data. That first bottle? Potential lifetime performance implications. Again...no pressure.
And then of course there is environmental stress. Heat stress, cold stress, overcrowding, poor ventilation, inconsistent feeding schedules, excessive pathogen exposure, and poor bedding conditions all reduce growth efficiency. If a calf is burning calories trying to stay warm, cool down, or survive environmental challenges, those calories are not going toward development.
Comfort is not coddling.
Comfort is economics.
Honestly, the more research we gain, the clearer it becomes that calf raising is not just about keeping tiny bovines alive. It is more like managing highly volatile, fuzzy, milk powered investment portfolios with a tendency toward digestive rebellion.
Tiny stock assets.
With diarrhea.
So what is the major takeaway here? The first two months of life are not simply a beginning. They are foundational. Growth matters, illness prevention matters, colostrum matters, and stress reduction matters.
Because the future milk tank often begins long before the first lactation.
It begins as soon as the calf is born.
Every pound gained, every fever prevented, every scour case minimized, every management decision, every feeding protocol, and every ounce of colostrum may echo years later in the parlor.
So yes, calf raising absolutely involves bottle launchers, sleep deprivation, rogue manure incidents, and enough chaos to occasionally question your sanity. But it is also some of the most economically powerful work on the farm.
You are not just raising calves.
You are building future cows.
