Colostrum
Colostrum is vital for dairy calves because it provides energy and essential nutrients for digestive development, disease protection and long-term health. As a result, it’s crucial for calves to receive adequate, high-quality colostrum within hours following birth for a healthy start to life.
Prepackaged colostrum replacers are an easy way to quickly feed colostrum to a newborn calf. However, while they do come with many benefits, there are a few potential negative aspects of utilizing this nutritional tool.
There is still room for improvement to reduce incidence of scours and respiratory disease.
New formulation mixes in approximately 15 seconds.
Minnesota research conducted five years ago with 12 eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin commercial herds showed that 93% of colostrum samples contained more than 100,000 colony forming units/ml of bacteria.
The majority of operations, 59.2%, hand-fed colostrum to calves from bottles or a bucket. But on average, calves received hand-fed colostrum 3.3 hours after birth. Veterinarians and calf specialists typically recommend feeding colostrum within an hour of birth to optimize absorption of critical nutrients and to transfer immunity.