A new research project will examine the health and welfare of dairy calves on Irish farms and in transport for export.

The Welcalf project has received €1.47m from the Department of Agriculture and is being run in collaboration with the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF), UCD and Teagasc.

Emer Kennedy from Teagasc, the coordinator of the project, said that the overall objective of the project is to improve the health and welfare of calves that come from the Irish dairy herd – regardless of their destination.

“In Ireland, more than one and a half million cows calve every year, so there are 1.5m calves which need to be reared. They then go to one of three main destinations – they either stay on the farm of origin where they’re reared as replacement heifers, or they’re reared for beef, the majority go to beef farmers and are reared as dairy-beef animals, and a proportion undergo intra-community trade to Europe,” she told the Irish Farmers Journal. Some of the main outcomes of the project include developing an app, which will allow animal health recording and create a feedback loop for farmers. The app will collect real-time metrics relating to key welfare traits, such as calf vigour. As well as this, a number of farms will be chosen to take part in the project in order to get a baseline of calf welfare on both dairy and dairy-beef systems. A proportion of calves from these farms which have health issues, will be selected and a ‘calf health toolkit’ will be designed to help farmers address the issues. The toolkit will then be assessed to determine its suitability for national rollout.

To improve the welfare of calves being exported to the continent, the project will look at developing in-lorry feeding systems for long-distance journeys. This will be then trialed out on calves travelling to Europe.

Guidelines

“We’ve already carried out some work, going to the Netherlands and looking at that. One task is modifying a lorry to feed the calves while they’re on-board because there are new EU guidelines coming down the line that calves are going to have to be fed.

“Given the length of the journey from Ireland to Europe means that we have to try find a solution to feed the calves while they’re in transit,” Kennedy said.

Before the calves embark on the journey, they will be fitted with continuous glucose monitors, to be able to monitor calves while on the boat, but also after they get to their destination. The project is one of 21 new research projects which received funding from the Department of Agriculture this year.