Last week, the Calf Care & Quality Assurance (CCQA) program published the first volume of its Animal Care Reference Manual. The manual assists farmers and ranchers who raise different breeds of male and female calves intended for dairy and/or beef production systems. It encourages calf raisers to approach management decisions with thoughtfulness and an appreciation for the responsibility they have to their animals, consumers and the broader cattle industries in the U.S.
In addition to the manual, the CCQA program also offers resources specific to the needs of calf raisers such as protocol templates and animal observation scoring reference guides.
The CCQA program is jointly led by the National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) program, managed by the National Milk Producer’s Federation (NMPF) and NCBA’s Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) program, funded by The Beef Checkoff. Support is also provided by the Dairy Calf and Heifer Association, and The Beef Checkoff-funded Veal Quality Assurance (VQA) program.