Danielle Varner, Calf and Heifer Specialist at Cargill Animal Nutrition, joins Ruminate This for an insightful discussion on improving calf health and performance through effective farm team communication. Learn about the common challenges that often lead to calf health issues, the importance of training beyond just protocols, and the key areas where the best calf programs consistently excel.
Tune in to learn how strengthening teamwork can boost calf health and improve overall performance.
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Scott Zehr
All right. Welcome everybody back to another episode of Ruminate This with Agrarian Solutions. I’m your host, Scott Zehr. And today we are gonna be talking about one of my favorite topics: people. And why is that a favorite topic, you might say? Because I believe that people are the ones that actually make stuff happen.
And today we’re gonna be talking about people in the sense of your calf program on your dairy farm. And with me I have Danielle Varner. And Danielle, I’ll ask you to introduce yourself in just a second. But she is going to dive in with me on her role and how she gets teams of people rallied around a common goal such as the CALF program. So Danielle, tell us a little bit about yourself and your role.
Danielle Varner
Yeah, Scott. So as you’ve said, my name’s Danielle Varner, and I work for Cargill as a cap and haver specialist. I’ve been here about two years now. Prior to this, I studied at Delaware Valley University and majored in dairy science. After that, I worked on five years as a herd manager in Pennsylvania, and then I went out to Utah. And I mostly was managing the Hispanic workforce that we had on farm as well as being in charge of herd health and the calf program.
Scott Zehr
So, okay. The first question I want to ask, why calves?
Danielle Varner
Calves are our future, right? We’re always looking for the future and the future’s two years out. And it starts with those first 24 hours that we have in our calves. Calves aren’t just $20 anymore, either. We’re seeing skyrocketed prices. So the loss of one calf hurts a lot financially on the farm.
Scott Zehr
Yeah, it certainly does. I mean, we’re enamored by the beef on dairy prices right now. Right? You know, the 800, the thousand dollars. But, these heifer prices, heifer calf prices are also jumping up. Our national heifer inventory is at a near all time low. To say every heifer counts anymore is like, hello? I mean, you, you can’t stress it enough, right?
Danielle Varner
Mmm-mmm.
Scott Zehr
So, within your role at Cargill, you were telling me you do a lot of like Spanish translation work and talking to people on the farm. So walk us through a little bit of that. You know, imagine you’re walking onto a dairy, they say the calf program is struggling. What’s your first steps?
Danielle Varner
I mean, first I ask them about their program, right? I’ll ask the farmer what their protocols are and just kind of flush through that. I like to do a sanitation audit just to kind of factor that out, making sure we’re actually getting things wash completely. Do a feeding audit, so watch the crew actually feeding and then talking to them, right?
So talking to the crew and seeing what they’re experiencing, what their frustrations are, what they think they could use in order to be successful? And I’m, not saying that as in a thousand dollars worth of equipment, right? But is it support for an hour when you’re feeding calves or is there something broken that maybe wasn’t supported?
So I think just talking both ends and just making sure we’re all on the same page. And if there is some protocol drift there, just letting them know why we’re doing each step. Right? Because I think that education is crucial. On a lot of these farms there isn’t someone who can speak Spanish, at least not the boss. Maybe it’s someone in the middle. Right?
And are the fundamentals being passed down? Not just, here’s our procedure, but the real reason of why it’s so crucial that you follow this procedure. And if there’s something that you don’t know or need more training on, please communicate that. And there are resources out there.
Scott Zehr
So you mentioned fundamentals and I know our listeners are probably sick of hearing me talk about Vince Lombardi, so I won’t do that this time. But how often do you find just the protocol drift on the fundamentals on the calf program?
Danielle Varner
I’d say if they’re having a problem, it miss a hundred percent of the time. There is some kind of protocol direct, and I think for neighbors, really expensive, right? Not in just the training part, but we spend this, if we are training, then we have to spend that time training all again. And the fundamentals get missed, right?
We just try to hurry up and teach them fast so they can at least do the bare minimum of feeding. And I think we kind of forget to go back and go through each step and go through the reasons why and the fundamentals. So I think that’s crucial to follow up on, not just once a year, but going back every six months. Doesn’t matter if you have the same person, just to remind them how extremely important each step is.
Scott Zehr
So, Danielle, twice you’ve mentioned like why we do the fundamentals, why these things are important. How literal do you take that in your work As far as helping train the people that are doing the work?
Like yeah. How literal do you take it? Why from the standpoint of, so the calf doesn’t get sick or like the greater WHY so this animal can become a productive member of the herd and have, five, six lactations?
Danielle Varner
Yeah, I would say it’s all of the above, right? And I think if you explain to them why, why it’s important to them, right? Sick calfs. I’ve been on farm, you know how much time that costs and then you have the medicines you have to give, and you’re trying to restrain them. It can add so many extra hours to your day if you have sick calfs.
So just understanding that if we spend a little bit more time on the fundamentals upfront, that they’re gonna have less work to do in the long run and that directly impacts them. Right? So that’s kind of what I’d like to do.
And also just letting them know that we can see that, right? We can take total protein, so we can see that. We can do sanitation audits and see what the bacteria levels are. So it’s not just what you can see. We can actually have a roundabout way of knowing if the protocols are getting done correctly.
Scott Zehr
So you talk about how it impacts them, right? The individual feeders or the people that are executing the plan, the protocols. Some of the best calf managers I’ve seen, I would describe them as detail oriented and very empathetic. So, have you came across like the emotional impact? ‘Cause I, some of the best managers I’ve seen in the calf programs, like, it’s like they take it so personally when a calf gets sick, right? There’s an emotional drain. You know, like if you have a sick child at home, like it’s emotionally draining, you feel bad for that child. Do you ever talk about that with them as well?
Danielle Varner
Yes. I think those are some of the best managers. Those are the people when I go onto the farm, they say, I lost a calf and I don’t know what to do. And they’re the ones who I go through and I’m like, it’s fine. Sometimes these things happen. And you’ve tried your best, and I think they really need that. I think going over goals too, those are the same people that are goal oriented. So if you go over morbidity rates and mortality rates, they’re the ones who want what last month was and where they’re at this month.
They always wanna strive to do better, and I think you really need to take advantage of that because they will be the ones to set the tone for the team too. So they care about it. And the ones that do care, every time I come, they say, how are we doing? How are the calves doing in the maternity area? I’ll go straight to them and ask them if they’re having any challenges then.
And they say, how are the calves looking when they get up there? Is there anything that could allude to us not doing our job to the best of our abilities? Or is there something that we’re missing down here? And they really want that information relayed to them because they care about their part in the system and they wanna make sure that they’re doing the best that they can.
Scott Zehr
So, you know, I, think overall, right? I think people want to do a good job, you know? I’m a big believer that you have to have the right people in the right seat in any organization, in any department. It’s a different type of person that is going to consistently thrive and enjoy working in the parlor versus consistently thrive and enjoy working in the calf barn.
Do you ever find times where we set this person up as the calf person because, well, maybe we just needed somebody new? But they’re just not the right fit. How do you identify times where this person’s just not the right fit to execute the calf program?
Danielle Varner
I do some training. The guys wanna do their job, right? Like you had said. So when we sit down and we go through with a new person, we go over the training and we try to help them and support them, or they feel like they need the most training.
There are times that they will come out and say, I just, I’ve tried it and I, it just didn’t click for me. And I think with that, there is some room to move around your current employees, especially ones that have been there longer. Maybe they’ve collected the colostrum so they understand the parlor side and they’re seeing another part of the operation that are also intertwined with the calf program.
And maybe they would really enjoy that. There are some people who would like to milk day in and day out, and there are other employees that thrive in a different environment. That thrive in different day in and day out. And I think that’s kind of what the calf program is, right? You’ve gotta work around it.
There are some days that it is routine, but there are other days where you’re moving animals or you need to vaccinate or there are sick calfs. So they kind of take away your time and you have to kind of be a little bit more flexible. So I think offering the training, making sure that your workforce feels supported, and making those changes when needed instead of forcing someone who maybe doesn’t have the abilities or the eye for calves into that position, and then getting frustrated when they can’t execute.
Scott Zehr
The eye for calves. I love that expression. My repro background you know, heat detection is like the farms would say, well, when the guy is dumping off feed, he’s looking for heats. Really? One, he’s probably trying not to hit something. And then two, would be, how much experience does he have looking for heats?
Because I’ve, been around people that they wouldn’t know that a cow’s in heat if they were five feet away. So I think that is very similar in the calf program. Right? I was recently on a dairy where I was like, and what’s going on with this calf? And it wasn’t the calf manager, it was one of the guys, you know, working on the team.
He was like, what’s wrong with it? Like, well, its ears are kind of droopy. Its eyes don’t look quite right. And he’s like, what’s not right? Gosh, I don’t know. It just doesn’t look like it wants to, you know, jump around and kick.
Danielle Varner
Yeah
Scott Zehr
And I’m by no means like a calf guru but, I’ve been around ’em enough to know that there’s little signs you can pick up on.
Danielle Varner
And those are crucial, right? I mean, when a calf gets sick with scours, you don’t have the time that you do with a cow a couple days. You get hours before dehydration can hit. So it’s so vitally important that we catch these signs early and not pneumonia when they’re coughing and laying down and can barely get up. Or scours when their whole pen’s filled with it. The subtle changes.
When you’re in part of that calf program, when you’re in charge of that calf program, you should know your calf. You should know which ones are spunky, because they’re like kids, right?
Scott Zehr
Yes.
Danielle Varner
You know, has a different temperament, and it’s important that you get to know that because that will help you out extensively just knowing those signs. Okay, this calf normally comes up and drinks. Now it’s acting like it doesn’t know how to drink out of a bottle. It drank a whole bunch of water out of its bucket today. It doesn’t normally do that. And just like you said, they’re just acting off or they have snot or any little thing.
We need to learn how to find the signs early and you can train for that, which I think we need to. Right? Just keep going over the fundamentals and the early signs. But if someone cannot catch that, it takes an eye. And that may not be the person for your program because you cannot be catching those calves late because those are when you have to keep doing repeat treatments and they have a failure to thrive.
Scott Zehr
Yeah, they do. And like the long-term effects. Right? We talk a lot about the improvements we’ve made, genetically speaking, we see that, I think on the cow side where a lot of farms have focused on breeding for fat and protein over the years. And there’s some Holstein cows putting out a lot of fat and a lot of protein. You’re never gonna capture that investment if you’re waiting till the calf is coughing to intervene. Right?
Danielle Varner
Yeah. I think you really just need to be able to catch those early and just, I know turnover is expensive and we just think if we just give it more time. But how many calves have to be sick and treated and die before we realize this person has been reaching out, saying, I don’t think I’m the right fit for this job.
I would love to work for your operation, but I just don’t think my skills and talents are in this position, until we wait until later and then we have a huge problem. And then we’re also trying to train somebody new into the position.
Scott Zehr
Yeah. And that’s a nightmare scenario where you’re bringing in a new person to basically clean up a train wreck.
Danielle Varner
Yeah.
Scott Zehr
And that’s, not a good starting point.
Danielle Varner
Well it’s not that confidence goes off too then, right? Because they just feel like I’m not doing a good job. All these calves are dying when they’re already in a situation where we’re already at our worst point that we’ve had on the farm.
Scott Zehr
Yeah. So, I’m curious, we talk a lot about people on this platform and the importance, you’ve mentioned fundamentals as if something’s off the rails within the program, it pretty much is always fundamentals.
But I’m sure you’ve had a chance to see or be a part of some successful calf programs and probably some not so successful. What is really the difference, culturally, between like a successful team, a calf team versus one that is struggling?
Danielle Varner
I think the difference really is just the investment that we put into the employees. So working with your nutrition company as partners, right? And trying to get these guys on track. So whether that be through trainings, meetings where the boss is there and we can talk about things that are broken or, I understand that you put this procedure in place, it’s hard for us to do. What can we do to work together in order to accomplish both of our goals and still be able to do it in the reasonable time frame that we need to?
Going through and doing routine sanitation audits, giving KPIs, the guys wanna know on the best farms, where we’re at and how I can beat it. Where was I at last month? Where am I at this month? And if I cannot accomplish that, what am I doing that I’m not seeing? I think just really investing that time, making sure they understand the fundamentals, doing routine trainings.
It does not need to be a couple hours. I’m talking one topic, 30 minutes. Do we need to bring in the vet? Let’s do it. There have been times that I’ve brought in the vets for tubing, for bracing of calves working together as a team because I think if you have each department individualized, it doesn’t work.
We all have to come together for the same end goal, right? Because I want what’s best for your calfs. And if it’s something that you can’t provide because it’s a time constraint or you can’t speak the language, please bring in your calf team because that’s what we’re here for. We’re not here just to sell you feed.
And I think the best farms that are doing the most and are the most successful are working with us. They are calling us when they have a problem. We’re calling them. We know their team by name, and we have a really good relationship that they feel vulnerable enough that they can come to us and say, “I’m trying my best. These cals are not doing good. What can I do?”
And yeah, just making sure they understand when they are doing a good job. Because a lot of the farms that I go to have not been communicated with by the farmer to say, you’re doing good, you’re not doing good. So they think whatever they’re doing must be right.
And I think it really lights a fire under them when they hear, you’re doing a good job. This is where we’re at. It kind of gives them a little bit of a calm too, of just understanding that their best is good enough or just any feedback really.
Scott Zehr
Yeah. I think that’s key. And then how do we present to the team when something isn’t right? Are we coming down with Thor’s hammer or are we presenting it as an opportunity to improve? I think that can be a big difference in the cultural aspect of it, right?
Danielle Varner
Yes. And I think it’s, is the problem because of ignorance or spite, right? Is it because they don’t understand what they were doing was so crucial or they tried to find a different way? They “busca la forma”, they looked for a way to do it. They can’t communicate with the boss. We need to get it done like this. Let’s change things up. And then they made it work and they didn’t realize they were shooting themselves in the foot.
Or is it, we’ve been trained, we understand this, but I wanna get home today. And I think those are the people that will drag down your calf team. So after ative time in them, you need to realize who is there for a paycheck and who’s there for your calves. Because if they’re there for a paycheck, they should not be anywhere near those calves, because it’s frustrating trying to feed the calves, right?
They don’t wanna drink or they’re dehydrated or you have a lot of them that are sick. So you need to really have that patience that you’re not cutting over open the nipple and they’re getting aspiration pneumonia, or you just say, I’m done with it. These are my hours.
You need people that really care and are there for the after hours and that will relay to the boss, Hey, I’m struggling right now. We’re going through it. I need some support for someone to tell me where to go, and I need some hands on deck.
And it just needs to be an open forum that they can communicate that with their boss. And I think that is something that I see on the most successful dairies as well as that they can reach out. I’m not saying every day I need help mixing this.
I’m saying, right now we’re going through a lot of sick animals and I just, I need some extra support if it’s even for an hour to get this task completed. And those are the farms that I think are the best. They have that open communication and the workers don’t seem to abuse that in any way.
Scott Zehr
You mentioned earlier about like departmentalizing, stuff, right? It’s one thing to go spend 20 minutes with your calf team and then go spend 20 minutes with your repro team or your crop crew. I really love when I see like, and it, it could be weekly, it could be my weekly, it could be monthly.
I love when I see all of those departments getting together because it really is like when I’ve used this analogy before, there’s the 1936 US Olympic rowing team. And the boys in the boat you can look at, you can find the book, you can watch the movie. But it’s more than just having everybody in the same boat. We all have to be rowing in the right direction at the same time. Right?
And I find it’s extremely important for the repro team to understand what’s happening with the calf team. Right? tThose things seem to be directly correlated. And the milking crew and the crop crew. I think one of the best meetings I was ever at was on a dairy that we talked to the crop crew about their role in getting cows pregnant. That was never even something that was on their radar.
How is what I’m doing fixing a skid steer, helping get cows pregnant? Or putting up crops? Right. what you said made me think of that. And I would encourage listeners, think about who’s in that meeting? Because if, you can get buy-in, and that’s one of the questions I want to ask you.
If you can get buy-in from all the different departments, you know, around a common goal, I think everybody brings their level of performance up a little bit. So you’ve had a chance to work with, I’m sure a number of different people, a number of different personalities, right? Sometimes you identify that, hey this just isn’t the right person maybe for this role.
Or sometimes, Hey, you know what? I think this is the right person, but they’re doing some things good, they’re doing some things the right way. They just don’t seem to be totally bought in. Like, what’s the secret of breaking through with that person on a person to person level? How do you get them to really buy into what the operation is trying to accomplish?
Danielle Varner
I think it all depends on the person, right? Sometimes you gotta lay it out flat and say, A, B and C need to get a colostrum, has got to get into these calves in the first two hours. It’s gotta be clean. We cannot leave it out for an hour because bacteria doubles every 20 minutes.
Naval dipping is important. We’ve gotta get that done two or three times and it’ll help you in the long run. I think really relaying back to them how it helps benefit them by spending that extra time in the beginning, letting them know that we are checking, right? We’re checking tidal proteins, we are monitoring the colostrum and who fed it.
Were going back through for them to know that you are also looking at morbidity rates, mortality rates, sanitation audits, feed audits, surprise audits, not the calf specialist is coming today so they’re being extra clean. And just really letting them know you’re there for them and that the boss is there for them.
You’re all there for a common goal, and that’s to keep these calves healthy throughout this transition and getting them through. Right? And I think whenever they feel supported and you’re saying, okay, we’re not doing this, why? Is it something you feel like with time? Is something broken? Is there something you’ve seen on another dairy that has worked?
Because there are some people that have worked in the same position on another dairy and they bring great ideas, and it’s a resource, right? It’s invaluable. If they’ve been to a farm and they’ve seen something new, maybe a product that they don’t sell, it’s something that they need. And it really worked on that program.
Why would you not listen to ’em? And I think, if they’re able to bring up creative ideas to the table to at least be heard, it lights a fire. You don’t wanna do something day in and day out sometimes. What you need from your workers is to say, Hey, we’re all working toward this common goal. We need to get it done.
These are my ideas. If you don’t think they work, bring me your ideas to get this goal accomplished. And then of course, the end of the day, if it doesn’t get done, sometimes we need to make those decisions and sometimes we make the decisions late and we get rid of the good help that we do have because they’re just so frustrated that they don’t have the skilled labor or the motivation from their partner. And then we’re looking for two job openings versus one.
Scott Zehr
That’s a great point. I wish I could tell you I’ve never seen it, but oh man, I can think of too many scenarios where performance is lacking and it’s not even just on a dairy farm. it’s in all types of industries, companies. And maybe we identify the leader of the team as why aren’t you executing, right?
And we let them go. And we replace them with somebody else and performance doesn’t change. It’s like light bulb moment. Maybe it wasn’t the leader, maybe it was the other folks on the team. So before we wrap up, I have a lot of I’m gonna say theories based on just my experience and so on.
And, you know, we talked a little bit about fundamentals. So two questions I have for you yet, and I’ll preface the first one when I walk onto a dairy, I have things that I look for that tell me how things are run on this dairy, right?
So, we will get calls or I’ll go on a dairy and it’s like, how can we do a better job of getting cows pregnant, or how can we get more milk outta the cows? What’s some advice you can give us? And so I have my dirty fan theory. I’ve probably never told you this before.
But the dirty fan theory states that on any given day I can walk onto a dairy. And if I see dust and dirt collected on the fans and the freestyle granted, I know some people neglect them in the wintertime, so you gotta be a little careful. But especially during the seasons where we need those fans, if they’re dirty, I can generally speaking, get a good idea on how well they execute fundamentals on a dairy.
And what I would say, the elite herds that I see, that I get a chance to visit, it doesn’t matter what day of the year you walk on that dairy or those dairies, the fans are clean. They’re ready to go. So for you visiting calf barns, visiting hutches, visiting whatever type of housing or what are the one or two things that like, I see this, I know we’re gonna have issues with X, Y, Z.
Danielle Varner
I would say a clean calf room is my number one. If things are unorganized in there, if it’s left dirty, it’s probably gonna lead me to say, okay, we’re having some issues here, probably with some bacteria. Maybe even just finding the necessities that they need. Right?
I think if you take care of that room, you kind of level up to that, right? Just like a parlor. If you walk into a parlor and people are power washing and they keep it clean, you like to work in a clean environment, and it kind of just shows that, and I think there’s more pride in what you do. Right?
And I think that’s the same with the calf room. It’s just making sure that you can find their equipment. It’s hung up. The room is clean, it’s easily organized. You can find where the calf book is. Those are some key things I think I find for success also. How are the calves? Beded is another one, right?
Scott Zehr
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Danielle Varner
That when you first walk in and the smell of the barn, if you’re in a barn, you can kind of smell it. Or sometimes in the sturdy belts. So just looking at that and kind of how they’re kept. Is it clean? Is it clean inside the barn? Is it clean and sturdy built? Is does it look like it’s been power washed? Are there lines straight in the individual hutches? How much pride are we taking in making sure that cap yard looks good?
Scott Zehr
That’s a good one. I like that.
Danielle Varner
I mean, it just shows pride. It shows that they really care about what they do down to the last dot of I crossing a t.
Scott Zehr
Yeah. My last question for you, Danielle, is if you could challenge a farm to buy into just committing to the fundamentals. And, I think there’s operations out there that are just hitting it. They’re making it happen day in, day out. But if you could challenge each one of those producers to just buy into, you know, compliance and execution of the fundamentals, what would that do to the trajectory of that animal for her life and subsequently for that dairy?
Danielle Varner
I could turn it all around. Those first 24 hours, set the tone for your whole herd. If we do not do that right, we’re setting ourselves up for failure, right? We’re catching our tail at that point, and we don’t wanna do that. We don’t wanna be just surviving, we wanna be thriving. And that starts with those first 24 hours. So investing in time versus band-aids is so crucial. We look at the ween program and say, okay, well they survived the wet cafes and then we let them go at weaning.
Maybe they lose that average daily gain that we just worked for. We’re spending more time out there treating, because if the respiratory’s gotten so bad in the wet phase some of them are repeat treats, right? We hold onto them longer and they’re not really paying themselves back until that second lactation.
So even looking at where we’re at as far as, are we at 55% body weight when we’re breeding? Once they have in, sometimes we think, oh, well, they’ll have in, and then they can catch up on that weight.
Scott Zehr
They don’t.
Danielle Varner
Immensely slower. And where’s that money coming from? Production? And that’s an expensive feed.
And that’s not where we’re wanna be caught up at. We need to be evaluating that before they’re calving in. We need to be evaluating that throughout the cycle, because a lot of the times we just look at ween weights and then we say, okay, they got to that weight. So they’re probably good until, until we get there. And we don’t even know where our mature body weight is sometimes.
So like for example, if you have 1400 pound mature herd, right? They should be 770 pounds at the first breeding. And then with that post calving, they should be around a thousand, 190 pounds. So are we hitting there? Are we thinking about it? Or are we just thinking, okay, we checked a box, we got two pounds. Now we’re good.
That health of the animal is so crucial and I think controversial take here, everyone wants to keep more heifers right now, right? Because of the value of them. We wanna raise ’em. We wanna have ’em in and then sell ’em. But if we’re herding or herd, if our calves are at 50% versus a hundred percent, if we would’ve taken that back, if we’re spending so much more money in labor and investing in treatments and having to put more calves down and having higher morbidity and mortality rates, is it worth it? Because I kind of think you might end up with the same amount of calves as if you would’ve just kept them at stalking density and sold them earlier on.
Scott Zehr
I, I think that sounds like another podcast conversation right there all by itself. Yeah, definitely want to thank you for jumping in today. The one thing I will tell everybody is I became a Danielle fan the moment that I heard her say, “get colostrum in the calf within two hours.”
I hate it when I hear people say, and you hear industry professionals say it. Try to get the colostrum rhythm, three, four hours max. No, no. So, Danielle, kudos to you for sticking to the two hours. I love that take. And again, thank you for joining us today on Ruminate This With Agrarian Solutions.
Danielle Varner
Thank you for having me.
