Calf Pens for Raising Healthy Calves

Calf Pens for Raising Healthy Calves

This article is about how having an appropriately constructed calf pen can improve overall value in your operations and increase yield on your herd. 

Having implemented our products into thousands of the best beef operations in the United States, we feel confident we have a lot to offer from an insights perspective about the subject of calf pens. Our pens have use cases across multiple livestock and agricultural applications – We produce calf pens for Beef and Dairy operations, and our products can be used in goat, swine and other operations as well.  

It’s hard to tell seasoned ranchers and dairy operations folks how to do their business better – that’s why we try to focus on how we can help. You know your operation, and we’d love to be involved in improving your bottom line – but we want to focus on optimization. This article seeks to help you understand the different options that we offer that can help you build the right pen for your calves 

Note we have products that can be used in beef, dairy and pork operations – and many of our products can also be made to work with other livestock – we invite you to reach out to get additional questions answered.

ADA Enterprises is a great partner in producing better yields and helping you raise a herd of Healthy Cattle – Let us show you why

We offer helpful products that play a passive role in day to day operations mostly – where you can benefit from buying once and getting hard use out of the products for years. One example is flooring. 

We produce flooring for beef and pork operations that allow you to minimize contamination in the herd, lower the incidence of infections, improve the footing of young animals, and level your pen floor to keep things easy to clean and maintain. There are a lot more benefits that come as ancillary value with our products but the obvious value is in peace of mind from knowing you aren’t replacing our flooring as often, and that it will last for a long time providing significant ROI. 

For the purposes of this discussion we will highlight the benefits of improving health regarding the groundcover in your calving areas.

Young heads of beef need to maintain health from the beginning – this means better weight yields, less total herd infection concern, and less culling due to broken ankles or damaged hooves/legs.  

Rapid early weight gain is incredibly important to overall total weight per head. It is also important to understand (as all cattle operations do), that heavy weight on developing young bones, tendons and hooves make for more delicate handling needs until these animals gain their footing. Young, hungry calves want to eat. They aren’t focusing on gracefully meandering over to the feed areas. Having stable, comfortable footing can help them develop the necessary balance and strength in their lower body. 

Here’s how ADA Enterprises can help your operations with durable, stable flooring options for livestock and dairy:

• The expanded metal we use in the structural frame offers evacuation holes so food waste, feces and urine can pass through easily, without festering on the floor leading to possible infection
• The holes are large enough to assist with waste, but small enough to avoid getting young hooves caught in them, so not only are you providing a stable base for your calves, you are also improving injury incidence rates 
• The coating on the steel flooring is plastisol (polyvinyl) and this coating makes it rust proof, mildew and mold proof, and easy to clean and maintain, both on a day-to-day basis, and in between pen rotations
• This polyvinyl coating is also helpful in maintaining the comfort of the animals by offering a slip resistant base, and a temperature moderation factor, whereby the surface they touch (walking/standing/laying down) is no hotter or colder than the ambient temperature
• The helpful moderation of temperature through touch, and the fact that your calves are not subjected to undue moisture or bacteria helps bring lower incidence of illness, and better total quality of life in animals – which is proven to up your total yields

Our history, our products, your cattle operation, your healthy cattle

We provide flooring for animal operations and have done so for many years – We make products that offer individual housing of calves for those operations that prefer individual maintenance of younger heads. We also make calf grouping options available to improve health and quality of life through the obvious benefits of grouping calves. 

You can build a multi-method program easily with our products that integrate easily. 

There are clear benefits to each methodology, including independent caretaking and management of certain calves to ensure proper weight gain where there has been stunted progress, or in socializing of calves where they can improve their quality of life and you can get benefits of touch, and microbiome intermingling, etc. 

Bottle holders and other weaning equipment is available for our products as add-ons. 

We’ve been making these products since 1974, and have a lot of evidence that our products have proven considerably valuable from a ROI perspective. Every calf operation is different so we have options. 

DuraTrac and Clearspan offerings allow for different configurations. The opportunity for segregation to monitor individual calf progress, or grouping and socialization options is vast. 

Dura Bilt Convertible Calf Pens will easily turn 2 or 3 stalls into one larger pen by simply removing the center divider(s). The entire unit is coated in polyvinyl with no exposed steel. Many options are available for customization. Note – there are significant advantages to optimizing your penning areas for all types of operations – beef, dairy, pork, and other livestock or agricultural operations that include husbandry. 

Group penning options are large enough to allow calves to groom themselves, lie down, and stretch limbs, and rise without difficulty.

Our convertible calf pens allow the best of both types of housing. The dividers simply lift out when caretakers feel they are ready for grouping. Individual stalls are converted to one larger pen.

We aren’t telling you what will work for your operation – but if you call us we can help you understand how our products have worked for many operations outside of yours – you can determine how good a fit our products are. 

We think there is a great fit for all of our products in most livestock operations. The ability to customize installation based on modularized, proven independent components allows you to cater to your specific needs and the needs of your herd appropriately. 

Preparing for a healthier herd future

Some of the biggest advantages of using ADA Enterprises’ cattle and other livestock products is that they are durable, easy to clean and require less rigorous activity to maintain and transition new groups of livestock through the different areas of your program. 

A healthier, more comfortable herd (remember – our solutions apply to dairy and beef operations, as well as products made specifically for pork production, among others) is proven to give better ROI. But, it’s important that the expenses to obtain those incremental improvements on yield and value are not frivolous either. We provide products that help you improve health and sanitation, and cut down on injury, while being able to count on the product for many years, and minimizing labor in your daily operations. 

All these factors equate to better return on your operational expenditure, and you make more money and have a better total herd quality thanks to passive incremental improvement. You also get to feel good about making responsible herd choices that directly contribute to cattle quality of life.  

We’re looking forward to talking with you.