Dairy calves: what happens to the calves of dairy cows?

No calf, no milk. Every cow in a milking herd has had at least one calf, and most have one about once a year. So every dairy farm raises a steady stream of calves, and each one’s future depends on what it is: a heifer or a bull, a dairy calf or a beef cross.

The first hours

A newborn calf has almost no immunity of its own. It gets it from colostrum, the first thick milk, and the law says each calf must have colostrum as soon as possible and within the first six hours of life.¹ In a dairy herd the calf has its first ear tag within 36 hours and the second within 20 days,² and its birth is registered for a cattle passport.

A small black-and-white calf lies curled up in a wide bed of straw. — Bedded in straw

Reared by hand

On 210’s farm, as on most dairy farms, calves are reared by people rather than by their mothers, so the cows’ milk can go to the parlour. The law sets the minimum: calves fed at least twice a day, housed calves checked at least twice a day, and no calf kept in a pen on its own after eight weeks old.¹

Here the calves are Jade’s job. She feeds them, beds them and knows each one, and they move from their first pens into groups as they grow.

Jade leans over a blue calf feeder as black-and-white calves drink, with a brown calf lying in the straw behind. — Jade with the calves

Heifers, bulls and beef crosses

Heifer calves from the best cows are kept to become the next milking cows. Bull calves from dairy breeds such as the Holstein make little beef, and for years they had little value. On some British farms they were put down soon after birth. Jon never did that on 210’s farm.

That has changed fast. Farmers now use sexed semen, which gives mostly heifer calves, on the cows they want replacements from, and beef bulls on the rest. Sexed semen makes up 84% of the dairy semen sold, and beef semen now outsells dairy semen on dairy farms.³ The industry’s GB Dairy Calf Strategy reported a 65% fall in dairy bull calves born on British farms and a 77% rise in beef-cross calves.⁴

The beef-cross calves are reared for beef. In 2012 just over a third of calves born to dairy cows were registered as beef animals; by 2021 it was half.⁵ The white faces in these pens are typical of calves by a beef bull such as a Hereford.

Four young calves, some with the white faces of a beef cross, stand together in a straw-bedded group pen. — Calves in a group pen

The rules on bull calves

Red Tractor, the main British farm assurance scheme, requires its dairy farms to have a written breeding and management policy that rules out the routine euthanasia of calves.⁶ The GB Dairy Calf Strategy set out to end the routine euthanasia of healthy calves by 2023.⁷

How we know

The photographs were taken on 210’s farm while the film was being made. The rules come from the regulations and Red Tractor’s own guidance; the figures from AHDB and the NFU. All are listed below.

Sources

The Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations 2007, Schedule 6 (calves).
The Cattle Identification Regulations 2007, Schedule 1.
AHDB semen sales survey, year to April 2024: sexed semen 84% of dairy semen; beef semen 52% of all semen sold to dairy farms.
NFU, “GB Dairy Calf Strategy progress report shows significant successes”, 28 January 2025.
AHDB analysis of BCMS data: share of calves born to dairy dams registered as beef, 2012 and 2021.
Red Tractor, Guidance on writing a breeding and management policy.
The Andersons Centre, interim Nuffield report on calf euthanasia on UK dairy farms: the GB Dairy Calf Strategy 2020–23 aim.

Last checked 2026-10-25. Spotted an error? Tell us via the press contact.