title: Survey of preweaning dairy calf-rearing practices in Czech dairy herds.
abstract: It is important to describe weaknesses in rearing calves not only to improve their welfare, but also to detect areas where current scientific knowledge is poorly integrated into practice. A survey of preweaning calf-rearing practices was conducted using a farmer questionnaire. The survey included 136 farms, representing 11.9% of all dairy cows in the Czech Republic. Mean herd size (± standard deviation) was 326 ± 131.4 cows, and mean milk production 7,413 ± 1,389.5 kg per cow per year. We evaluated 59 farms with Holsteins (H) and 77 with the Czech Fleckvieh breed (C). The survey revealed that (1) calving in group pens predominated (67.6% of farms); (2) no disinfection of calf navels occurred on 11.8% of herds; (3) pooled colostrum was fed on 15.4% of farms; (4) colostrum quality was controlled on only 44.1% of farms, and only 73.5% of farms had reserve colostrum stocks; (5) nonmarket waste milk was fed in 64.7% of herds but it was pasteurized in only in 6.8% of herds and acidified in 35.2% of herds; (6) milk replacer was mixed with nonmarket waste milk on 52.9% of farms; (7) 58.8% of farms enabled calves to obtain milk by sucking and 41.2% by drinking from a bucket; (8) the main criterion in weaning was calf age (61.7%), followed by acceptance of starter and concentrated feed (19.9%) and lack of housing capacity (18.4%); and (9) newborn calves were individually housed on 96.7% of farms and group-housed on 3.3% of farms. The most marked differences in calf-rearing management between Holstein and Czech Fleckvieh farms were (1) a higher proportion of operations calving in tie-stalls or stanchions in C (6.5%) versus H (1.7%) farms; (2) a higher proportion of untreated navels on C (15.6%) versus H (6.8%) farms; (3) a lower proportion of C (11.7%) versus H (20.4%) farms feeding pooled colostrum; (4) a lower proportion of C (39%) versus H (50.9%) farms monitoring colostrum quality; (5) sucking milk from nipple buckets predominated (61%) on C farms, whereas drinking from an open bucket was most common (64.4%) on H farms; (6) age was the main criterion in weaning calves of both breeds (C farms: 55.8%, H farms: 69.5%), whereas the second most important criterion was lack of housing capacity (28.6% of farms) on C farms and the amount of consumed starter (25.4%) on H farms. We observed a difference in duration of colostrum period between C herds (median 5d) and H herds (median 4d). A tendency was observed for age of calves at weaning (C herds: median at 9.1 wk, H herds: median at 10 wk).
authors.affiliation: Department of Technology and Breeding Technique of Farm Animals, Přátelství 815, Institute of Animal Science, 104 00 Prague 10 - Uhříněves, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Staněk
authors.affiliation: Department of Cattle Breeding, Přátelství 815, Institute of Animal Science, 104 00 Prague 10 - Uhříněves, Czech Republic. Electronic address: vzink@seznam.cz.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Zink
authors.affiliation: Dairy Cattle Specialist, K Sokolovně 858, 104 00 Prague 10-Uhříněves, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Doležal
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Husbandry, Kamýcká 126, Czech University of Life Science, 165 21 Prague 6 - Suchdol, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Štolc
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D018153:Czech Republic; D003612:Dairying / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D012307:Risk Factors; D014886:Weaning
keywords: calf; farm management; rearing; welfare