The Cutting Edge - Article 20 - Educating calf care personnel in dairy operations

Operators To OWNERS

Calf care personnel on dairy farms and their educational opportunities

Find the Big 3 Take-Away Infographic at otovets.com/cuttingedge

Big Take Away #1: Only 50% of individuals employed in calf care have a high school diploma or GED. This makes the understanding and uptake of recommendations much more difficult, potentially effecting compliance.

With larger calf herd employee’s have 7x more likely chance of having less than a high school education.

Big Take Away #2: . In this study they showed that language barriers are a common issue; with over 70% of employees speaking Spanish and less than 35% of owners and vets able to communicate in this language.

This contributed calf feeders being 3.4 times more likely to be trained by experienced feeders than management personal.

Big Take Away #3: Generation Y and Millennials tend to value more training and employee development with Coulombe in 2016 noting that Hispanic Millennials place greater emphasis on being comfortable with the workplace and seeing themselves there for a long time.

Tailoring trainings to ease comfort in the job through understanding of role and “why” will help with long term vision.

Ultimate Message: A huge opportunity exists for veterinarians to assume the role of the consultant that can tie together age, education, language and management barriers. Dairy operations are lacking in consultants that can fill this role effectively. Understanding the implications of each of these factors and how to bridge them will be key to the success of any future agricultural consultant.

Calf care personnel on dairy farms and their educational opportunities

Link: https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(19)30146-8/fulltext

Published by W.M Sischo, D. A. Moore, R. Pereira, L. Warnick, D. L. Moore, J. Vanegas, S. Kurtz, K. Heaton, D. Kinder, J. Siler, and M. A. Davis

Location: Arizona, Idaho, New York, Oregon and Washington

Objective: The objective of this project was to describe selected demographics of calf care employees on large and small dairy farms as part of a larger project to understand on-farm communication with regard to calf health and treatment. One of the aims of this study was to provide background information that might inform educational efforts on prudent antimicrobial use for calf health on dairy farms and calf ranches, particularly for those with multiple employees involved in calf care.

Methods: Two to 8 individuals per farm involved with calf care, including owners, veterinarians, and calf managers, feeders, and treaters, were interviewed in either English or Spanish. Interviews were conducted in person on 53 dairy farms located in Arizona, Idaho, New York, Oregon, and Washington State. The number of preweaned calves on the farm ranged from 9 to 1,500 (median = 93). A total of 224 individuals were interviewed across 8 job titles.