Rearing Young Stock on Tropical Dairy Farms in Asia

John Moran

• Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780643107427
• eBook ISBN: 9780643107922
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Agribusiness
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Rearing young stock for replacement heifers is probably one of the least well understood and practised aspects of herd and feeding management on dairy farms throughout the world, particularly on small holder dairy farms in the tropics. This book addresses all the major concerns of the small holder dairy farmer in Asia. It shows how to attain optimal growth in young stock, so that as cows, they can calve at an appropriate early age at the lowest cost and promptly substitute for any cows culled from the milking herd. This provides continuing returns on the investments of feed, labour and other farm resources.

Low reproductive rates and high calf mortality are the major causes of reproductive wastage. This has a direct bearing on culling and replacement strategies and on genetic improvement. In many tropical countries, calf mortality can be as high as 50%. In some areas this can be due to climatic stress on temperate or crossbred stock. While climatic stress compounds the other hazards of calf life, high calf mortality is usually due to diseases and poor feeding management.

Rearing Young Stock on Tropical Dairy Farms in Asia encourages the small holder dairy farmer to maintain their investment in replacement heifers and gives them the tools necessary to achieve realistic targets for mortalities, live weight gain, mating age, and age and live weight at first calving. It is a companion volume to three previous manuals written by John Moran: Tropical Dairy Farming, Business Management for Tropical Dairy Farmers and Managing High Grade Dairy Cows in the Tropics.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• About the author
• Other books and technical manuals by the author
• Acknowledgements
• Acknowledgement of The Crawford Fund
• Chemical warning
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The two phases of young stock management
• 3 Digestion of feeds in the milk-fed calf
• 4 The nutrient requirements of calves
• 5 The importance of colostrum to newborn calves
• 6 Calf and heifer mortalities in the tropics
• 7 Facilities for calf and heifer rearing in the tropics
• 8 Milk feeding of calves
• 9 Calf milk replacers
• 10 Solid feeds for milk-fed calves
• 11 Disease prevention in calves
• 12 Communicating with the calf
• 13 Post-weaning management of dairy heifers
• 14 Mating and calving management of dairy heifers
• 15 The business of calf and heifer rearing
• 16 Assessing current calf- and heifer-rearing practices
• 17 Conducting training programs on improved young stock management
• 18 Best management practices for rearing young stock
• Appendix 1: John Moran’s golden rules of calf and heifer rearing
• Appendix 2: Conversion of units of measurements
• Appendix 3: Currency converter for South and East Asia
• Appendix 4: Workshop expectation and evaluation forms
• Glossary
• References
• Index