Dumfries: What makes a calf thrive?

Join us for a practical on-farm session exploring how nutrition, housing and performance monitoring can help improve calf health, growth and long-term performance.

We'll get hands-on with the host farm's calf system, looking at how to:

• Spot housing and ventilation issues that could be holding calves back
• Get nutrition right to support healthy, consistent growth
• Use monitoring and technology to identify problems early and assess whether calves are meeting their targets

Hear from Julia Wadeson, independent nutritionist, David Ball from AHDB and MSD Animal Health, and take the opportunity to ask questions, compare approaches with other calf rearers and discuss practical ideas to apply on your farm.

Whether you're rearing dairy replacements, dairy-beef calves or contract rearing, this event will help you assess calf performance and identify opportunities for improvement.

Arrival and refreshments from 10:00am. A light lunch will be provided.

Speakers

David Ball 

David is AHDB's Technical Manager specialising in livestock buildings and the farm environment. With extensive practical dairy experience, including managing dairy herds, David's work focuses on livestock housing, ventilation and creating environments that support animal health and performance. For this event, David will look at how to assess calf housing and identify practical improvements.

Julia Wadeson 

Julia is an independent youngstock consultant and founder of Calf To Cow Consultancy, specialising in practical calf and youngstock nutrition and management. With postgraduate study in ruminant nutrition and production, Julia works directly with farmers to improve calf health, growth and performance through practical, evidence-based approaches. She is also a signatory to the GB Calf Strategy 2025–2030.

MSD Animal Health

MSD Animal Health will focus on how technology can help farmers understand whether calves are genuinely thriving. The session will demonstrate SenseHub Dairy Youngstock, which uses electronic ear tags to monitor youngstock behaviour around the clock, helping farmers identify animals that may require attention and providing another tool for monitoring health and performance.