Rearing Young Stock on Tropical Dairy Farms in Asia

Low reproductive rates and high calf mortality are the major causes of reproductive wastage. This has a direct bearing on culling and replacement strategies and on genetic improvement. In many tropical countries, calf mortality can be as high as 50%. In some areas this can be due to climatic stress on temperate or crossbred stock. While climatic stress compounds the other hazards of calf life, high calf mortality is usually due to diseases and poor feeding management.

Rearing Young Stock on Tropical Dairy Farms in Asia encourages the small holder dairy farmer to maintain their investment in replacement heifers and gives them the tools necessary to achieve realistic targets for mortalities, live weight gain, mating age, and age and live weight at first calving. It is a companion volume to three previous manuals written by John Moran: Tropical Dairy Farming, Business Management for Tropical Dairy Farmers and Managing High Grade Dairy Cows in the Tropics.