Neonatal calf mortality from scours, pneumonia, and inadequate colostrum transfer is a significant welfare problem; preventive management at calving dramatically reduces losses.
Neonatal calf welfare represents a welfare and economic challenge where management quality determines outcomes dramatically. Calves that fail to receive adequate colostrum within the first hours of life have impaired immunity throughout their lives, making them susceptible to the infections that cause welfare-compromising illness and death. The interventions are known: prompt colostrum feeding, quality testing, clean housing, and early disease detection. The gap between optimal and average management on commercial farms is large enough that systematic improvement in neonatal calf management would prevent significant welfare-relevant suffering across the dairy industry.