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In September 2008 whilst the heavens were opening across the UK, the state of British Columbia, Canada was experiencing an unexpected heat wave with temperatures reaching 30 degrees Celsius. However this wasn’t to last and towards the end of the tour some snowfall was experienced. What a contrast in temperatures!

As it can be gathered from this opening statement, the destination for my Bursary Award from The Farmers Club Charitable Trust was British Columbia but in particular the states University’s Dairy Education and Research Centre (locally just referred to as “UBC”). It is situated in a small town Agassiz which is about a two hour drive east of Vancouver in one of the most stunning locations ever witnessed.

Ariel view of Agassiz and UBC(central right) This was to be my base for the duration of my travels. This destination was chosen because its mission is to become a world leader for dairy education, research and technology transfer and has within the last ten years started to undergo a major upgrade of facilities which are now in the final stages of being completed.

What I was particularly interested to examine was the Centres youngstock management and research especially with calves.

Side view of calf research facility building The centre’s policy on calf rearing can only be described as “similar” to that of any College farm and/or any commercial farm in the UK. Unless dictated through a specific research project, at UBC all calves are removed from their dam as soon as practically possible. The reasoning behind this is essentially the health of the calf.

Although not common practice in this State of Canada it was felt that by removing the calf from its dam quickly reduces the time that the calf is exposed to any disease and dirt present in the calving pen and on the teats of the udder. It was also believed to be the least traumatic and stressful method for both cow and calf to be separated before any bond could be established. One incident in particular witnessed regarding this has stuck in my mind. At an afternoon milking a cow was in need of some assistance at calving having been in the birthing process from early morning. The resultant calf born didn’t even get the chance to catch a glimpse of its mother or the cow literally get a sniff/lick of the calf before it was rushed to the calf house. Within less than five minutes the cow was being herded into the milking parlour to join the rest of the milking herd having had no time to fully recover from the situation. A slightly “thought provoking” way to demonstrate the whole dairying process.

The whole area of defining calving ease proved to be a real talking point for the duration of my stay at UBC. The main problem was with the definitions being used for assisted calving. In Canada there are 4 categories: Easy, Normal Pull (1 person), Hard Pull (2 person) and Ceasarian. Without causing any sexual prejudice against female students all of the male farm staff were slightly concerned that any assisted calvings being undertaken by more than one of the female students were recorded as Hard Pull (2 person) but could this calving have been recorded as a Normal Pull (1 person) if it had been done by one of them? In the true nature of the centre it was agreed that maybe this should become an area to be researched by someone by using some gauge of force expressed on the calving ropes!

Colostrum management at UBC is extremely successful and this was one of the major attainments from this trip. Their management of colostrum comes from dedicated research undertaken by themselves and in collaboration with Agriculture and AgriFood Canada (AAFC) which is a Government Research Institute located next to UBC. In surveys carried out in the US between 8-10% of dairy calf deaths have been attributed to poor colostrum management. This is in line with the UK calf mortality rate which is quoted in various publications in the region of 8%. Although no such information is available for Canada as a whole, in the State of British Columbia it has been found that 23% of dairy calves are at risk from poor colostrums management.

All colostrum from the Centre’s newly calved cows and heifers is tested using a device known as a colostrodoser. What the device is measuring is the colostrum quality, in particular the level of immunoglobulins present in the colostrum. As a matter of routine no newborn calf is fed colostrum with an Ig level below 50g/litre.

Any colostrum that is below this level of quality is discarded. If the colostrums contains above 50g Ig/litre then it is frozen immediately. However, again as a matter of routine there is always at least 4 litres of colostrum kept in the refrigerator in case a calf is born over night. If any frozen colostrum is needed it is taken from the freezer and thawed in warm water. A piece of research that was in the initial stages during my stay there was looking at ways of “cleaning” colostrum. There is supposed to be some evidence that shows colostrums comes out the udder very near sterile but soon becomes contaminated in the parlour. What was happening at UBC was some of the colostrum was being mixed with Formic Acid at different levels and then frozen.

Upon being thawed out to be fed to a calf a sample of this colostrum/acid mix was taken and plated on media and incubated to see what number of bacteria grew. The calf receiving this “colostrum cocktail” was monitored as well to examine quantity drank over 24 hours and also blood sampled to obtain absorption levels. The researcher overseeing this study was keenly trying to recruit human volunteers to sample this mix . I decided to “pass” on this occasion!

After being fed colostrum when put into one of the individual calf pens in the Calf Research Facility, each calf is subsequently fed 3 litres of pasteurised milk twice a day up to around Day 6 of age. The calf is fed from a teat and bucket system which as the name suggests a teat that is attached to a pipe which is inserted into a bucket with a lid. A simple but effective feeding system.

teat and bucket feeding system At Day 4 of life, all heifer calves get dehorned using a caustic paste and general anaesthetic. After only a couple of days of being dehorned by this method the heifer calves unless otherwise needed to be kept individually for research purposes are moved onto the next stage of feeding – group pens.

internal view of calf research facility building In total there are six group feeding pens where a lot more detailed studies can be carried out. Each pen contains a DeLaval machine feeder, a concentrate feeder, a water intake bin and a roughage intake. Attached to every DeLaval machine feed station and water intake bin was a weigh platform to monitor calf weights every time they visited these stations throughout the day and duration of its stay in the group pen.

Overhead cameras were also above all the group pens to allow behavioural studies to be carried out as well. All of the weigh platforms and intake recording bins are connected to a central display unit which in turn is connected various computers located in a designated room within the building. The DeLaval machine feed stations are connected up to the ring distribution system that is in place from the Pastueriser.

Unless an experiment is being carried out and dictates otherwise, each calf can receive up to 12 litres of pasteurised milk per day up to around weaning which is between 49 and 56 days. At the time of my visit an experiment looking at the effects of an extended milk phase was on going. With this calves were randomly allocated to one of three treatments- milk up to day 42 of age, milk up to day 60 and milk up to day 84. It would be of interest to examine the results from this study as there has been various pieces of similar research work carried out in the UK, for example accelerating growth rates in the pre weaning phase by using milk replacer powder with a higher protein content.

UBC Dairy Education & Research Centre certainly has all the facilities in place to carry out such dedicated and varied research with the above mentioned only being a very small insight into the research being carried out with youngstock, others being activity monitor development for health incidents and behaviour and welfare.

I would like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere thanks to the selection panel of The Farmers Club Charitable Trust for giving me the chance to travel to this part of Canada and examine research and facilities. Also to the Scottish Agricultural College for allowing the time off and the staff at the University of British Columbia Dairy Education and Research Centre who were most welcoming. A truly memorable experience (even the “brief� encounter with the native wild brown bear wandering out the maize!)