This project provided producers
and employees with tools needed to make positive changes in calf health, and
employee education, training and retention. Many dairy operations hire Spanish speaking employees with little
to no English proficiency and communication barriers develop between the dairy
owner and employees. It is important that employees are fully trained for their
job, this is most likely to be successful if the training is in their native
language.
11 on-farm training and educational workshops and four classroom workshops in Iowa and
Nebraska were delivered to help employees who manage calves understand why and how to test colostrum, importance of low stress handling, proper nutrition from birth to weaning, and hygiene for future animal performance. Demonstration videos were developed into 42 3-minute trainings in English and Spanish. Videos became available on flashdrives/DVDs and were requested by 100 producers from 18 states and 10 countries. Factsheets were developed to correspond with the training videos and posted on Iowa State University Extension and Outreach and University of Nebraska-Lincoln websites with 2,675 downloads. Long-term outcomes included re-evaluation of calf care standard
operating procedures, better training
and understanding of calf care, increased employee engagement and retention, better
calf performance and increased farm profitability.