Calf loss: profit lost in the middle of the night

On dairy farms, calf loss is usually the sum of events that each look unremarkable on their own. Added up over a year, the figure is anything but.

Why at night?

A substantial share of calvings begin in the evening and overnight — the proportion shifts with feeding routine, but the night window is the hardest one on any farm — the hardest window for any farm. Staffing is thin, lighting is poor, and the gap between checks is long. In a difficult calving the first hours decide the outcome, and if nobody is there during those hours both calf and cow are at risk.

Where the loss happens

Loss typically occurs at three points:

1. Noticing the calving late. When the process does not progress normally, the window for intervention closes.
2. The first hours after birth. If nobody checks that the calf gets up, takes colostrum and dries off, problems surface too late.
3. Unnoticed complications in the dam. Post-calving problems carry into the next lactation.

What can be changed

Calving itself cannot be controlled — but when you find out can be. If you are told the moment calving begins, everything after that is ordinary farm practice.

A camera-based system acts as a watcher here: it continuously observes the animal in the pen and raises an alert as calving signs appear. Without anyone staying up all night.

Setting a target makes the difference visible

As long as calf loss rate goes unmeasured, improvement goes unseen too. Tracking the rate regularly shows what happened in which month and whether a measure actually worked. Without measurement, every improvement is guesswork.