Assisting calving rates outdoor or indoor

Rachel Bragg

Research output: Contribution to journalComment/debate

Abstract / Description of output

I WOULD like to thank Dai Grove-White for his insightful commentary (VR, 23/30 January 2021, vol 188, pp 67–69) on our recent paper.1

Within this commentary there was a query over whether the calves in our study were born indoors or outdoors. These data were available as part of the wider herd level data; however, they were not included in our analysis which focused on calf-level risk factors for calving assistance.

Within our study population, we had 907 calves born on 68 farms that reported calving indoors, 83 calves born on seven farms that reported mixed indoor and outdoor calving and 118 calves born on nine farms that reported calving outdoors. The assistance rate for these calves was 19.2 per cent for herds calving indoors (n=174), 21.7 per cent for mixed indoor/outdoor calving farms (n=18) and 8.5 per cent for outdoor calving farms (n=10).

This would broadly support the anecdotal reports of lower assistance rates in outdoor calving herds mentioned by Grove-White and highlights the need for further work in this area.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)158
JournalThe Veterinary record
Volume188
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12 Feb 2021

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