Everyone talks about “culture” on dairies, but for calves, culture quietly determines which calves grow into healthy, high-performing cows and which struggle.
In this episode, Scott explores how Agrarian Solutions’ RISE core values, Relational, Integrity, Strategic, and Excellence, shape real-world calf management, not just posters in the office.
Through examples from three dairy farms, Scott demonstrates why the same facilities, nutrition, and SOPs can produce drastically different results:
Farm A: Two shifts, same protocols, with wildly different outcomes because attention to calves matters.
Farm B: Intentional hiring and team alignment drives uniform, resilient dairy calves that more than double birth weight.
Farm C: No new equipment or formulas. They focused on people, and calf health problems disappeared.
Explore how to apply RISE on your dairy farm by seeing quiet signals, sticking to protocols, and refusing mediocrity. Plus, learn why pre-weaning growth predicts lifetime milk production and how excellence spreads through dairy farm culture.
🎧 Listen now to set your herd up for lifelong success!
All right. Hey, welcome everybody to another edition of Ruminate This With Agrarian Solutions. I’m your host, Scott Zehr. And we are going to be talking about culture today. And the impact of culture on performance. Culture has become a buzzword in really all industries. But, you know, we, it’s, it is talked about a lot.
We’ve talked about it on this platform in a few different ways. But I wanna dive into what it actually looks like. How do you tell if your culture is impacting your herd’s performance? You know, if you asked, every, well, if you ask the average dairy producer what matters most for say, calf success, you’ll hear stuff like colostrum, right? Quality. Cleanliness. Consistency.
Consistency is a big one with calves and, and nutrition, right? And those are all correct. But I don’t believe it’s just what we do. It’s who’s doing it? You guys have heard me say before, I think this idea of bringing back people to people, bringing the person back into the conversation is, is a very important part.
It’s part of my mission. But it’s not just what you do, it’s who is doing it, why they’re doing it, and how consistently it’s done. You know, yes, calf care is biological, but it’s also very operational and very human. And so today I’m actually gonna be diving into what we live at Agrarian Solutions every day. And something that Agrarian Solutions has been built around, which is our core values.
So our core values, if you guys have followed along in these episodes the acronym is RISE. Relational, Integrity, Strategic, and Excellence. So why does this matter to your farm’s culture and performance? And I’m gonna be using the CALF program as kind of the example.
But I believe those four core values are what intuitively separates farms that raise healthy calves from farms that raise resilient, high performing future cows. So this episode again, is gonna be about people, principles, protocols, and the synergy between those three determines the future of every calf you touch. So the human factor. So you can take two farms with, let’s say the same genetics, same colostrum, same milk replacer, the same feeders, same everything. And still get a completely different result.
Why? Because calves live inside a world that we create for them. Even, even Cornell will tell us that calf management success is more about human behavior than animal behavior, in a lot of ways. Denkavit they’ve got, you know, they’re, they’re saying the same thing, right? The biggest variable in calf health isn’t the calf, it’s the person that’s feeding the calf.
I think one of the, the, the cool things I thought of when I think of that is that calves don’t experience protocols. They experience people. And that’s why I think RISE matters. Because RISE isn’t just values. But it’s, it’s almost like a management system for human behavior. I’m not trying to get too psychological on this, but work with me here.
So, let’s look at relational. If relational means you are, pouring yourself into something, right? Relational, as in a relationship, the person in charge of your calf program has a relationship with their calves. And you, you know, you can’t manage an animal that you don’t notice.
So I don’t think of relational as being soft or emotional. I think it means attunement. A relational feeder notices when there’s two ounces left in the bottle. They’re the ones that catch the subtle dehydration. Sees isolation and behavior. They spot the earliest signs of scours. They know the normal rhythm of every calf they touch and every group and every pen.
The things I just referenced are what Cornell calls the quiet signals of stress. And I think this is what separates great operations from average ones. It’s not necessarily money or facilities as much as it is attention, presence and consistency.
A relational culture says that every calf matters and every calf gets seen. So, I’m gonna break this down into two different farm scenarios. Farm A p, farm B. And these are based on farms that I have visited in my career within the last couple of years actually. And so I think you’ll start to see the contrasting differences we walk through this.
So let’s, let’s start with farm A. We’re gonna call this farm A: Two shifts and two different outcomes. Farm A had a very strong standard operating procedures, excellent genetics, facilities were decent. By decent, I mean more than above average, but maybe not in the top 5% I’ve ever seen.
And both shifts of calf feeders followed the protocols like to a T. And were actually able to track that because of their camera system. But the, the difference was, is that our quote unquote, A team, they didn’t just feed calves, they noticed calves, right? They lingered a little bit.
They kind of read the room if you would. They read behavior, they picked up on the almost imperceivable cues that cals show us when they’re starting to get sick. They observed all those things and they connected the dots.
They had integrity to the calf, not just the task at hand is, is how I would describe it. So let’s talk about the other shift of calf feeders. For all intents and purposes, and I’m not trying to be demeaning here, but let’s call them the B team. Every single one of them, good workers, hard workers, the type of workers we want pretty much almost in every aspect of our dairy. They followed the protocol to a T.
But, the reason I say the A team showed integrity to the calf, not just the task, is because the B team showed high levels of integrity to the task, but not to the animal itself. They were lacking the relational aspect. And it showed up with more scours caught late, more dehydration, more inconsistent growth, and more variability.
Same farm, same inputs, two different cultures, two different destinies. And to me that was such a crazy thing to work through. But it was just like the, we had one or two people on the first, you know, on the A Team of feeding calves that were just so in tune to what the calves were telling them.
And it wasn’t that the second shift didn’t do a great job because they followed everything everything to a t. Now this other dairy that I reference here we’re gonna call it farm B. They didn’t have an A team and a B team, but they did have two different shifts of people that took care of calves.
And this farm I would say A team Squared would be a better way to describe their, their program. Farm B built their program around the people, they hired intentionally. They trained even more intentionally. And they aligned their people attentionally. And their calves were just different. Uniform, very strong, very low treatment rates, high performance, more than doubling birth weight by weaning.
And the outcomes became predictable. And so, I think the relational care aspect of this relational aspect is that relational care builds trust, it builds consistency, lower stress, and higher outcomes. And that kind of the relational aspect of being relational with the calf really lays the foundation for everything else in the program: the integrity, the strategic, and the excellence.
So speaking of integrity, I think one of the best definitions I’ve ever heard of integrity is what do you do when nobody’s looking? But in relation to our calf program, integrity isn’t just checking all the boxes. Like the B team from Farm A, it’s protecting the future of the cow. So think of, you know, a lot of people think integrity is, is honesty.
And that’s true. But in calf care, I think integrity is practical. Integrity is the difference between a calf getting what she technically needs and getting what she actually needs. And I think some, some examples of, of that would be integrity means testing the colostrum. Actually weighing the milk replacer, not eyeballing it. Cleaning the bottles, not just rinsing them and hoping for the best.
Documenting treatments as they happened, not having the attitude of I’ll write it in later. Feeding the full amount. Not shaving or cutting corners just because you’re behind for the day or something. And sticking to the standards especially, and even when nobody’s watching.
Cornell has said it clearly, that small shortcuts repeated over time do more damage than major mistakes. And actually farm A that I described earlier, their two shifts demonstrate that statement perfectly. The A team lived integrity to the calf, every feeding, every detail, every calf. The B team lived integrity to the compliance of the job, and they did the job extremely well. But they fell short of protecting the calf’s future.
I don’t think integrity is necessarily about rules. It’s about commitment. It’s about commitment to the calf, the system, and the outcome. And I think a lot of this, like we intuitively know those of us that are, that are in the dairy industry, that work on farms or with farmers within calf programs.
I think you’re probably connecting the dots in your head of Oh yeah, that’s why like, I know this person’s calf program is so good because of that person that leads the team. But this is, this is kind of like the blueprint behind why it’s so good.
And, and, and when that integrity is strong, we see it in lower treatment rates. Cleaner barns, more uniformity between calves, better growth, better weaning transitions, stronger heifers, better lifetime performance. Like the integrity piece in your calf program, in your people having integrity for the calf, literally is the, the backbone to when Dr. Roth says “day one, week one, month one. Whatever happens during that phase affects that calf for the rest of its life.”That’s where the integrity piece is such a big deal.
Strategic. I want you to think about the fact that success is not accidental. In any phase of, of life and industry and business rarely is success accidental. It’s designed. Now, you could maybe argue that sometimes we don’t see the design that created the success and we attribute it to somebody got lucky or they backed their way into success.
But believe me, it’s designed. So if, if relational is the heart and integrity is the backbone of calf raising, I would say strategic is the brain. The strategic calf care is intentional. It’s a day one protocol, a week one protocol, a month one protocol. Feeding calendars, weaning, timelines, documentation systems.
Roles defined clearly. Expectations that are visible and consistent. Pre-weaning growth rate is the number one predictor of lifetime yield that came from Denkavit. Cornell pretty much says the same thing, right? Calves that double birth weight by weaning, outperform for life.
But you don’t double birth weight on accident. You don’t back your way into elite calf growth or accidentally stumble into it. It’s planned. It’s designed, and you have to execute it. A non-strategic farm, the feeding times are a little inconsistent. We get the milk replacer mixed appropriately most of the time. Vetting is added when we need it to be.
The starter is refreshened when somebody remembers to do it. Weaning becomes something that’s too subjective. I would say that weaning strictly by a calendar is maybe not the best approach either. But complete subjectivity when it comes to weaning creates a lot of inconsistencies.
The treatments become inconsistent. And those non-strategic calf programs that aren’t really thought out when you get invited like I do, to go visit a dairy and, and evaluate a part of the, of the system that’s struggling, and you start asking some questions to the people that are closest to the situation, not only do they not like they, they don’t understand why the thing is happening, but they have no real insights as to why some of the calves are struggling. Nobody’s emotionally invested into the program.
Now, you contrast that with what I see on, on the more strategic farms, the strategic calf programs, the feeding times are the same every single day. Everything is weighed properly, mixed properly. Vetting happens on a schedule. Starter feeds happen on a schedule. They get refreshed routinely. Ventilation routines, that’s a big one. The ventilation is always properly maintained and is always up to speed.
The weaning program is more structured and you may have that one person on the team that is so attuned to the individual calf’s need that they’re able to make decisions on individual calves as to whether or not they can graduate and be weaned or not. Maybe they’re held back, maybe they go a week early. But the program itself is structured.
It’s not that everything is objectively done by the calendar, it’s that there’s a lot less subjectivity that goes into weaning. The health logs are complete and unified. You can look up the data and trust it. And the outcomes are predictable. Strategy is alignment. And alignment is consistency. And consistency in calf care is how we, how we actually get to success. Right?
Let’s look at excellence for a minute. Excellence isn’t really perfection, I would say it’s standards. So excellence in calf rearing is not trying to be perfect. Excellence is refusing to be mediocre. Excellence is the clean bottles, the deep bedding, accurate mixing, consistent routines, honest records, proactive management.
Excellence is the mindset behind every high output herd. Every high output herd I’ve been on in the last 12 years of my professional career, excellence is the mindset behind the herd. It’s also the mindset behind us at Agrarian solutions, when we say defend and protect for a lifetime.
When a farm embraces excellence, it gives calves what they crave biologically, consistency, cleanliness, predictability, and stability. And actually what I have found in some of the best cultures on farms is that excellence becomes contagious.
When one person raises their standard, the whole barn rises with them. And when it comes to the culture of the farm, you almost never get complete buy-in around being excellent all the time by everybody on the staff. But it does take one person to take that step. And you can kind of evaluate the people that don’t fit your culture by how long they take to adopt that excellence mindset. And maybe they need to be counseled or even replaced.
So there’s one more farm I’m gonna talk about. And we’re gonna call that farm C. The transformation. And this is, this is a real story folks. Farm C, they did not buy new equipment. They didn’t change nutrition first. They did not renovate facilities. They only changed people, culture, and standards.
And essentially implemented relational, integrity, strategic, and excellence without ever saying the words. And the owner told me something that I’ll never forget as, as long as I’m in this, as long as I’m doing this. He said, I thought we had a calf problem, but we had a people problem. And as soon as we fixed the people, the calves basically fixed themselves. That to me, is a RISE culture implemented in your calf program.
So, if you want better cows on your farm, yes, it’s important to focus on nutrition and facilities, genetics. I had one farmer tell me one time that genetics is the one thing that affects every aspect of your herd. And I would say today, I’m gonna push back on that. And I’m gonna say, if you want better cows, start with better people.
Calf success isn’t luck. It’s also not magic, and it’s not something that only elite farms achieve. Calf success is a reflection of people, culture, protocols, and standards. And I think if you look at it RISE is the blueprint. Relational means you notice the calf. Integrity means we do right by the calf. Strategic we plan for the calf. And excellence, raise your standards for the calf.
So my challenge to you folks today is which part of RISE is strongest on your farm, and which part is holding your calves back? I’ll say that again. Which part of RISE is strongest on your farm and which part is holding your calves back? Name it. Own it, change it.
If I’ve learned anything through, just even assembling this episode, but thinking about these farms that I’ve, that I get to visit when people rise, the calves rise. When calves rise, heifers rise. When heifers rise, the whole herd rises. And when the whole herd rises, the business follows.
So at Agrarian, we don’t just defend and protect calves for a lifetime. We defend and protect the entire system that raises them, and that’s why I enjoy doing this podcast. I would love to hear feedback from you on this episode. Feel free to reach out anytime, [email protected]. That’s [email protected].
Thank you for listening again to Ruminate This. I’m gonna send you off with a challenge and that is go rise. Go rise, and let’s see what happens next in your culture. Have a great week.
