If you don’t want your calves to die, do this; This calf is 17 days old and still with the mother at 6:50pm. He was born on the 31st and instantly nursed colostrum. That’s not enough here’s the secret, for the first 14 days the calf stay with the mother day and night, we only milk incase the cow has extra milk. Now the next 7 days we separate the calf at 7pm and milk only in the morning. After these 7 days we will separate the calf at 2pm and milk in the morning. This gives 7 hours for the calf to nurse from the mother, around 8L consumed. The object is to gradually reduce milk consumption as the calf starts picking grass. This program will ensure that the calf gets enough nutrients into the body at this tender stage where it’s rumen is not fully functional. No issues with diarrhea and even if there’s an infection, the calf has energy to fight the infection. I designed this program based on my knowledge about calf nutrition and management and it’s working perfectly for a conventional farm. Let’s design one for your farm!