Video 11 colostrum nature’s liquid gold
If I had a favourite topic it probably is colostrum. As someone who is passionate about animal health, colostrum is the foundation of good animal health on our farms. Few aspects of husbandry and management will see as many benefits as optimising this precious resource in our animals.
Ruminant new-borns are born without passive immunity, we are all learning how important immunity is in these challenging times. It gives us the ability to fight infections.
For calves and lambs this is their most vulnerable period in their lifetimes. Having this 1st milk means they can have passive immunity while they develop their own immunity over the proceeding months.
Colostrum is not just about the immunity though. With twice the fat and protein of ordinary milk it is metabolic juice for the young ruminant to get started in life. Providing vital energy for the first hours of life.
With so much more research ongoing to the future lifetime performance of colostrum also. It contains things like insulin, IGF, interleukins, oligosaccharides and much more. It contains these agents in much higher concertation’s than milk. They play a key role in priming the young gut and may even have a role to play in immunoglobulin absorption
So watch this space as we continue to learn about colostrum.
There are some golden rules when we think about colostrum. Watch the video above as I dig into the golden rules of colostrum
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Quality
We must remember it is the first milk that contains all the nutrients and immunoglobulins, we can have a massive impact on colostrum quality on farm. Remember colostrum is brewed in the udder 14-7 days out from lambing or calving.
The diet at this time will impact the quality in my experience. While ruminants will instinctively put every effort into making good colostrum we can help. A good balance of energy and high quality protein in the diet really helps. A rough guide for Crude protein % of DMI should be 13-14%. This must be balanced with energy to utilise this protein fully.
Despite what people say this should not impact massively on foetal size.
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Quantity
Once we have the quality we must ensure we have enough of the good stuff
- For dairy calves, this means 3-4 litres or roughly 8%-10% of Bodyweight
- For the suckler calf, it is hard to determine how much they drink. But a vigorous calf and a good milky cow is essential. They should aim for 2.5-3 litres of colostrum. When feeding dairy colostrum to beef calves we need to feed more to allow for slight dilution because of volume.
- For lambs, it is between 50/60ml/kg of colostrum. This becomes a challenge for triplets or quads. Cross fostering may be advised here or topping up with bovine colostrum or high quality replacers. Again breeding decisions should be made on maternal ability and keeping those milky replacements
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Quickly
The young gut will close down over time and its ability to absorb these large antibodies decreases with every hour.
For beef and sheep this means special attention should be made to any weak or hard birthing’s. These need colostrum more than any animal. Get comfortable with stomach tubes as they are valuable in these situations.
For dairy calves it is important also. Remember that time from calving to milking might also affect quality if it is prolonged.
When tube feeding or bottling lambs there is no difference for absorption rates. I prefer bottling as it is sometimes easier to get them suckling on a teat (In my opinion). A calf will actually most vigorously suck a bottle in the first hour of life.
If you’re leaving dairy calves with cows to suckle you are depending on calves to have a good vigorous suckle and consume enough. I certainly have no issues with this system once calf health is going really well.
“Cleanliness is akin to godliness”
Colostrum by its nature is high in fat and protein. This makes it the perfect medium for bacterial growth. It can also form a scummy layer on buckets and individual milking plants.
So don’t let colostrum sit around in buckets on the farm. Only refrigerate for 24-48 hours. We do not want the calves first feed to be a bacterial soup.
Have a strict cleaning protocol for all utensils and equipment. This may mean detergents and cold water followed by a hot wash as a minimum. Try and incorporate a full cleanse and disinfection protocol as often as possible also for all colostrum utensils, including the bucket plant.
My experience is this machine can sometimes be forgotten in the clean routines. Especially the milk tubes.
For beef and sheep farms this cleanliness piece is about a good clean dry lie for the udder on the run-up to birth. The less faeces on the belly and bag (udder) the less issues the newborn may have.
When storing colostrum on the farm. Test and freeze only colostrum that is up past 24% on a Brix refractometer. For sheep and beef farmers store any colostrum you can. Store colostrum in flat easy to thaw out bags.
When thawing avoid the microwave at all costs and only put colostrum in hot water you can put your hand in and please don’t scald yourself in this process.
Always feed colostrum warm at body temperature.
Replacers
While our first stop must always be to have the best colostrum quality on our own farm there can be times we need replacers so go for the best option.
I began work with Nettex this year developing calf health programs for vets. It was to support colostrum gold, as they launched this unique product into the Irish market. It really is as nature intended, watch the video here as I went to find out where it comes from https://youtu.be/0UjcE-JS8dc
Thought for the day
One of my personal biggest lessons about farming systems has been to do the simple things really well and everything else will fall into place. Put simply always strive to “be brilliant at the basics”.
If people feel I can help them in any way my email is info@tommythevet.ie
Big thanks to Nettex for their support in helping me make #50in50 happen
Happy safe farming