Effect of diet on preweaning performance of Sahiwal calves

Abstract

The objective was to study the growth potential of Sahiwal calves given milk or milk replacer with or without concentrates. For this purpose, forty-eight Sahiwal calves were divided into four groups of 12 animals each with equal sex ratio. In each group, the calves were offered either milk or a milk replacer (MR) at a rate of 10% of their body weight adjusted weekly. In addition to this, calves were fed either a starter ration plus Egyptian clover hay (SR + H) or hay only (H) until the end of trial. The milk or MR was withdrawn gradually from day 56 until animals were weaned completely by day 84. Calves offered milk grew faster than those offered MR (357 ± 9 vs. 162 ± 9 g/day; p < 0.05) and displayed higher weaning weights (51.6 ± 0.8 vs. 35.2 ± 0.8 kg; p < 0.05). The calves offered SR + H grew faster (311 ± 9 vs. 208 ± 9 g/day; p < 0.05) and displayed higher weaning weights (48.7 ± 0.8 vs. 38.1 ± 0.8 kg; p < 0.05) than those fed H alone. Calves offered milk plus SR + H showed the highest growth rate and weaning weights (401 ± 13 g/day and 56.3 ± 1 kg, respectively). The lowest growth rate and weaning weights were observed in calves offered MR and H only (115 ± 13 g/day and 30.3 ± 1 kg, respectively). Calves offered the MR had higher number of scour days than those offered milk (13.5 vs. 3.3). The feeding of whole milk in combination with the starter ration and hay resulted in superior growth rates, higher weaning weights, and healthier calves than the other feeding regimens.

Effect of weaning age and milk feeding volume on growth performance of Nili-Ravi buffalo calves

“…An initial challenge faced was separating buffalo calves from their dams and weaning them onto artificial feeding through nipples. Feeding buffalo calves through nipples was more difficult than Sahiwal cow calves raised previously (Bhatti et al 2012a(Bhatti et al , 2013 in separate experiments. During the current trial, two of the buffalo calves did not accept nipple feeding until the end of the experiment and thus were removed from the study.…”

“…Thus, feeding strategies are required to reduce the cost of rearing buffalo calves to weaning. Early weaning of Sahiwal calves and offering them solid feed or using milk replacer reduced preweaning feeding costs, however, this practice resulted in poor weight gains at weaning (Bhatti et al 2012a). However, Rashid et al (2013) reported that buffalo calves can be weaned successfully at 8 weeks without compromising their growth performance.…”

Effect of pre-weaning feeding regimens on post-weaning growth performance of Sahiwal calves

“…Before weaning, they had been a part of a two by two factorial pre-weaning feeding trial reported by Bhatti et al (2011). The two factors were -liquid feed (milk or MR) and solid feed (starter concentrate ration with H or H only).…”

“…During the pre-weaning period, initially there were 12 calves in each group with six of each sex; however, one male calf died from each of the B and C treatments and were not replaced. Thus, 46 calves were assigned to the current post-weaning study, comprised of 12, 11, 11 and 12 calves from the original pre-weaning groups A, B, C and D, respectively, as described by Bhatti et al (2011). During the post-weaning period, after 84 days of age, the calves were given a single TMR (Table 1) Feeding and housing Animals were housed in separate calf pens (142 3 112 3 112 cm: L 3 W 3 H).…”

Effect of feeding strategies on weaning weight and milk production of Holstein × Zebu calves in dual purpose milk production systems

“…Studies carried out in tropical areas show low average daily gain of calves (Bhatti et al 2012;Das et al 2000). However, the lactation curve of Zebu cows allows the adoption of different management strategies (Santos et al 2014), since their reduced milking period allows the milk produced in late lactation to be consumed by the calves resulting in higher weaning weights.…”