Management practices can profoundly affect cattle health. University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers, working with Nebraska ranchers and their veterinarians, designed the Sandhills Calving System to prevent baby calf diarrhea. Cows are managed to minimize transmission of scours-causing pathogens by: 1) segregating calves by age so older calves don’t pass germs to younger calves; and 2) regularly moving pregnant cows to uncontaminated calving pastures. Cows are turned into the first calving pasture as soon as the first calf is born. Calving continues in this pasture for two weeks, and then the cows that have not yet calved are moved to Pasture 2. Existing cow-calf pairs remain in Pasture 1. After a week of calving in Pasture 2, cows that have not calved are moved to Pasture 3 and cow-calf pairs born in Pasture 2 remain in Pasture 2. Each subsequent week cows that have not yet calved are moved to a new pasture and pairs remain in their pasture of birth. The result is cow-calf pairs distributed over multiple pastures; each pasture containing calves within one week of age of each other. The effect is to re-create the more ideal conditions that exist at the start of the calving season, each subsequent week of the season (e.g. an uncontaminated pasture without the presence of older calves). Cattle from different pastures may be commingled after the youngest calf is four weeks of age and low-risk for scours. The Sandhills Calving System was tested over six and five calving seasons, respectively, in two ranch herds. Since then, other ranchers have adopted the plan and observed less sickness and death due to scours, and less use of medications. Although the system was tested in the Nebraska Sandhills, it is being adopted elsewhere because the principles on which it is based are widely applicable.

More information on the Sandhills Calving System can be found in the following papers.

Preventing Calf Scours with the Sandhills Calving System

Principles of the Sandhills Calving System

Preventing Calf Scours Using the Sandhills Calving System

Prevention of Neonatal Calf Diarrhea with the Sandhills Calving System