WHAT'S THE BEEF UPON ARRIVAL?
Dairy calves or dairy-beef calves, not destined for replacement animals, routinely contribute to the beef industry. Some estimates are that over 4.7 million calves go to dairy-beef in the United States annually and are typically raised to be harvested around 16-18 months of age. Many of these animals are transported to a dairy-beef farm early in life, often at less than one week of age. This transport can include multiple trips from the farm of origin and can include auction markets or calf dealers if the calves aren’t going directly to the dairy-beef farm. A challenge with this system and the movement of these animals is that it’s also difficult to trace them once they leave the origin farm, to know exactly how many stops they make and for how long they are in transport. Some research has documented at least three transport events before reaching their final farm location. During transport calves can be exposed to several challenges that could impact their health and welfare, including thermal stress, loud noises, mixing, fasting, and handling stress. These calves can arrive at their final facilities in an immunocompromised state and with a challenging health status.
A recent paper published in the Journal of Dairy Science (Schafer et al., 2026; 109:7328-7342) evaluated the condition of over 1,400 calves arriving to dairy-beef farms in the Midwest. The calves were estimated to be between 3 and 7 days of age. They estimated that 35% of the calves were dehydrated and 18% were depressed upon arrival. Almost half of the calves had low blood sugar and elevated non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), suggesting that they were mobilizing body fat after using up free energy, indicating some level of fasting. Furthermore, there were some indications of depleted electrolytes. To mitigate this, minimizing time of transport and continuing to provide milk and water access during transport would be important to minimize these outcomes on the calves.
Close to half of the animals evaluated had scours at arrival, quite high compared to other studies, which is a big challenge for these animals. Dairy-beef farms might have protocols that they have found helpful when receiving these animals, but not much has been done in terms of research to identify the best re-feeding and re-hydrating plan to get these calves back on track. Furthermore, close to one fifth of calves arrived with navel inflammation, indicating the need for better care of the umbilicus before transport.
An interesting aspect of this study was that there was a wide range of prevalence between farms receiving these calves, anywhere from 15-80% for diarrhea and 7-61% for dehydration. As mentioned, one challenge is that it’s very hard to track these animals from the farm of origin to the final dairy-beef farm. If you’re on the farm of origin side, it could be easy to forget about these animals once they leave the farm gate. However, it’s our responsibility to ensure the health and welfare of all the animals in our care and set them up for success, no matter what their destination. Dealing with sick calves is hard no matter where they are. One fifth of the calves in the study had failure of passive immunity at arrival. If we can improve our emphasis on colostrum quality to these animals, it will help protect them from the challenges they’ll face on transport. Furthermore, making sure they are well hydrated, fed, and in good health before leaving the farm will also benefit these animals. Ideally, we could improve our traceability so that we can determine how long animals are being transported to help minimize the impact these events have on the animal once they leave the farm gate and enter another.
— Sarah Morrison
