With prices soaring in the cattle market, we need to save every baby calf born this spring. The first thing to keep in mind is colostral intake. Every calf needs to get one gallon of good quality colostrum within the first 18-24 hours of life. Without this initial intake of colostrum a calf does not have a chance to live and thrive. In the cow’s placenta there are four membranes between mother’s blood and the fetus’s blood. In humans there is only one membrane. This is why calves must get their colostral antibodies from mother’s colostrum and humans do not. The antibodies will pass through the one membrane in humans, but not the four membranes in cattle.
These antibodies are actually Immunoglobulins or also known as IgG. They are very huge in comparison to regular proteins. Calves have pores that are open in their stomach and G.I. system that absorb these proteins. These pores are open for approximately 12 hours after birth and then they start closing. At 24 hours after birth they are totally closed. From then on colostrum will be digested as regular protein, with no value for immunity to the calf. This is why the timing of colostral intake is so important.
We also have a wide variation in quality of colostrum between cows and on the shelf. I like using a simple rule of thumb with cows, “A bull must have two balls to be good, but a cow better float three and no less than four ball colostrum to newborns.” This is using an antifreeze tester to test colostrum from cows. On the shelf we need to look at the IgG content. Some so called colostrum supplements only have antibodies against E. coli. What about the rest of the diseases that can attack a calf? It is recommended that we get at least 100 grams of IgG in these calves. This means that most of the commercial colostral products are supplements and not replacements. I know of only one that is a true replacement. A feeding of this colostrum will supply around 120 grams of IgG.
Most of this research was done at the United States Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center, Neb., in the late nineties. They found that if calves received one gallon of good quality colostrum within the first 24 hours of life, whether tubed or nursed, they had less disease all the way through to the knocking box at the packer. Over the years since this research we have found that the true colostrum from cows is the best, but when we do not have the availability of this I vote for one with the best IgG content as possible.
Dr. Tim O’Neill owns Country Veterinary Clinic in Farmington, Ark.
