Expert advice on colostrum management and newborn best practices.
Our bimonthly publications will inform you about colostrum management practices, newborn care, industry trends, and more.
How much is failure of passive transfer costing your operation?
The single, most important meal a calf will consume in its
lifetime is the first feeding of colostrum. Knowing when and how to
intervene are the first steps for ensuring a productive calf.
Effective colostrum management practices include the timely feeding of
adequate volumes of clean colostrum with a broad spectrum of protective
antibodies. This goal can be achieved by the careful selection, pooling and
heat treatment of maternal colostrum harvested on farm or by the use of a
standardized commercial colostrum product that is licensed as a veterinary
biologic.
To ensure proper immunity, energy and overall health, it is important to feed the correct amount of good quality colostrum to calves. However, it can be challenging to understand the proper treatment for each size of calf, especially smaller calves, in order to maximize these health benefits.
In pre-weaned dairy calves, inclusion of a colostrum replacer powder to the milk replacer for 14 days showed positive results in reducing incidence of diarrhea, respiratory disease, depression and umbilical disease. Use of antibiotics was significantly less for those receiving the colostrum replacer supplement.
Welfare of food animals is a rapidly growing factor in consumer selection of their meat and dairy products. Deficient colostrum feeding practices can lead to significant suffering of the young calf. Adequate colostrum feeding will not only ensure the welfare of your calves, but also improve the marketability of your animals.
-June 25th, 2025 | 5:00 pm CST
