We spoke to the winners of Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health’s global Optimax Award to find out how the tool has made a real difference on-farm for producers looking to prevent and tackle calf-health issues.
TEXT RACHAEL PORTER
Calf scour and pneumonia are the two key causes of mortality and losses on UK dairy units and both can be prevented by following strict calf-rearing protocols. These begin with the dry cow.
With that in mind, Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health has developed Optimax – a lean-management framework designed to enhance calf health and farm productivity by encouraging discussions between dairy staff and vets, and agreeing actions. The company also ran a competition among Optimax-trained vets in 2024 to see who could make best use of the tool on farm.
Put simply, Optimax is a calf-health framework that allows producers and vets to review calf management from close-up dry cows to calf weaning.
The process encourages open discussion to identify areas of inefficiency and scope for improvement. The 2024 award winner Becca Price, a practicing vet from Dorset-based Friars Moor Livestock Health, says that Optimax is a process that’s worked well and has paid dividends for one of her dairy clients who had a significant calf pneumonia problem.
“We physically walked through the entire process, from dry-cow management through to calving, colostrum feeding, calf housing and feeding,” she says. “Following the calf’s journey from birth to understand where the weaknesses and inefficiencies of the process lie allows the team to work as a group to identify common goals and set achievable targets.
Team discussion
“The inefficiencies and targets are discussed within the team so the process leads to a more realistic and focused set of expectations to work towards. The format makes it easy to review and track positive changes after a set amount of time.”
On the unit she visited, the Optimax process revealed that the automated milk feeders needed calibrating more regularly, as inconsistent feeding was ‘stressing’ calves. “The Optimax process highlighted that team members needed additional support and confidence to positively ID any potential cases of pneumonia, so steps could be taken to treat early. This increases recovery speed and reduces losses and mortality.”
Dr Price has been working with the team to carry out thoracic ultrasound scanning on calves, aged between two and three weeks old, to help them identify cases of pneumonia more quickly. Calves are scored on a four-point scale.
“Identifying cases is an on-going challenge. But the thoracic ultrasound scoring is helping and the staff are quickly getting to grips with the scoring system and seeing results. They also have a better eye for the detail after the walk-through and have identified the pinch points in their system – and the solutions to make improvements,” she explains.
In control
“And, more importantly, they feel like they’re back in control and enthusiastic for change. Motivation is key to the success of all calf-rearing systems. Producers and their teams need to feel empowered because, ultimately, it is down to them to iron out and resolve any issues in their calf-rearing system.”
Vet Martha Twist, who is based at the same Dorset-based practice, and was this year’s runner up in the competition, agrees. She carried out an Optimax ‘walk through’ on a local unit that was struggling with an acute outbreak of calf scour. “Mortality rate from birth to 42 days old was greater than 25%, and the producer was, obviously, keen to give the process a go to not only help tackle the problem but also prevent further cases.”
Faecal samples and post-mortems on dead calves revealed that the scours outbreak was the result of cryptosporidiosis, rotavirus, and E coli. “So clearly there was a lot going on – or going wrong – throughout the rearing system. Using the team walk-through, we set about getting to the bottom of it.”
As is usually the case, there’s rarely one issue or one ‘weak spot’ in a calf rearing system that’s at the root of a problem. It’s usually a culmination of small pinch points that, when added together, create the perfect conditions for disease to get a foothold. In this case, several pathogens were overwhelming the calves.
“The management of older calves is important, but we felt it was vital, in this case, to go back and look at the first 24 hours after birth, and even look back to dry-cow management. If close attention is paid to all areas of management before the calf is even born, then they get off to the best possible start,” says Dr Twist.
Given the nature and severity of the scour problem that this herd faced, the Optimax process revealed several weak spots. “The dry-cow environment was good, but the calving pens were under too much pressure. There were not enough of them and sometimes there were two cows in one pen – and cleaning between calvings needed to be more thorough.
“This ‘overcrowding’ issue also meant that often newborn calves stayed with their dam for too long and staffing issues meant that colostrum feeding also required improvement. Targets for the three Qs – quality, quantity and ‘quickly’ – were not being met. And protocols for cleaning feeding equipment were also reviewed.”
Once all these issues had been identified, it was possible for the team to come up with workable and practical solutions that they could implement.
Feeding equipment, which was previously ineffectively washed and dried, is now scrubbed and washed thoroughly and hung up to dry on a special rack that the team made.
One of the biggest changes made was switching from rearing calves ‘off site’ on a neighbouring unit, where calves were housed in straw pens in a shared airspace with older cattle, each pen had direct contact with the next, and there was limited protection from weather.
Calves are now reared on the main farm, where they are born, and housed in calf hutches with up to four calves in each. There is good separation between pens and improved hygiene and disinfection protocols. Hutches are steam-cleaned and then treated with a licensed ‘crypto’ disinfectant and all bedding is changed between each set of calves.
Possible solutions
Identifying waste in the system, such as time spent traveling between two sites, old equipment not being used, and problems with surveillance where calves were off site, led to a discussion of possible solutions. These including reinstating calf hutches and creating space at the main farm.
Colostrum is now harvested sooner after calving and dry cow dietary protein levels increased to produce better quality colostrum. This is fed to the calf within a few hours of birth, at a rate of 10% body weight, followed by a second feed later that day. All dry cows are also now vaccinated with a scour vaccine three months before calving.
It’s early days, but already the herd has seen significant improvements. Calf mortality rates peaked in October 2024 and there was a marked decline in November to 6% (see Figure 1).
The team, having made use of the Optimax process, has driven this improvement, according to Dr Twist. “This process gives them ownership – they’re motivated to make the changes and improvements required to make the system more streamlined and effective,” she says.
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