DAIRY ST R FALL & WINTER
Calf & Heifer Special Edition
November 11, 2023
Raising calves on a large scale hutches line the property — Hall’s Calf 5,200 hutches in all. In ad21 barns house 3,500 Ranch home dition, calves. Calves spend their rst days at the ranch in what to 8,500 head three Hall calls a warm barn to regBy Stacey Smart
stacey.s@dairystar.com
KEWAUNEE, Wis. — A business that began with 15 hutches in J Hall’s backyard in 1995 expanded into a custom calf-raising operation that today serves as a temporary home to 8,500 calves. Hall’s Calf Ranch takes in heifers and bulls from 40 farms and custom raises heifers for 27 farms. “We bring in 120 calves per day, seven days a week,” Hall said. Calves arrive at the ranch anywhere from eight hours to 7 days old, with out-of-state calves coming in at the top end of that range. About half are bull calves on hand for a brief stay, while the other half are heifers that will live at the ranch until returning home at about 4.5 months of age. The farm also serves as a depot for certain calves, such as beef crossbreds, and bull calves are sent out seven days a week. Rows upon rows calf
ulate body temperature. Here, calves are weighed, and blood samples are taken to test for bovine viral diarrhea and serum protein levels. Calves receive electronic identication if they do not already have it and are entered into the computer system. Calves that test positive for BVD are quarantined and retested. If they test positive for BVD a second time, they are euthanized immediately. Hall and his crew of 60 employees carefully follow protocols to produce successful results. To en-sure calves get the best start before heading his way, Hall has certain expectations of his clients. For ex-ample, he requests that a calf be given 6 quarts of colostrum before pickup. He also watches serum protein numbers closely. “We try to get above 6 for serum proteins,” Hall said. “These calves get a lot better daily gain and have less treatment rates.” From the warm barn, calves are moved into hutches.
STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR
J Hall, owner of Hall’s Calf Ranch, pauses for a photo following a tour of his farm Oct. 18 held as part of the Professional Dairy Producers Calf Care ConnecƟon workshop near Kewaunee, Wisconsin. Hall raises 8,500 calves. It takes two hours to feed milk, and calves are fed twice a day, at 5:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. For the rst 21 days, calves receive a 22:20 protein/fat milk replacer blend via bottle before switching to whole milk.
Hall also blends milk replacer that includes vitamins, minerals and probiotics to add to the whole milk. “We feed milk replacer in the beginning because it is perfectly consistent and is a prod-
uct that works really well for baby calves,” Hall said. There are 1,500 calves on bottles at any given time in the hutches and about 200 calves on bottles in the warm barn. Turn to HALL | Page 2