The Nutritive Value of Colostrum for the Calf

Abstract

Examination of results obtained during the period 1949-54 has shown that newborn calves grow well when they are brought into our calfhouse after it has been left vacant for some time. When, however, they are brought in after the house has been occupied by a succession of experimental calves, their growth rate is less.It is well known that scouring can reduce the live-weight gain of calves, and we have now shown that the incidence of scouring and hence the live-weight gain of a particular calf is related to the time interval between the first use of our calfhouse after a period of vacancy and the day that the calf is introduced. 'Occupation time', as used in this paper, is defined as the number of days that the calfhouse has been occupied following a period of vacancy. METHODSSeveral experiments are carried out in our calfhouse each year, and the results of many of these have already been published. The calfhouse, consisting of thirteen individual pens (for detaiIs see Aschaffenburg, Bartlett, Kon, Terry, Thompson, Walker, Briggs, Cotchin & Lovell, 1g49), is always disinfected and left empty during the summer months, and is then filled up at the end of August with calves collected within 8 h of birth from about thirty farms in the Reading area. The pens are kept filled throughout the winter and spring months with a succession of calves,each calf being kept for a 3-week period. This practice was followed during the winters 1949-50, 1950-1 and 1953-4, but during 1951-2 and 1952-3 the calfhouse was left empty for a short period in the middle of the winter. Thus at the end of December 1951 there was a break of 15 days, from the middle of January 1953 one of 20 days and from the middle of February of the same year one of 17 days; these occasions allowed additional disinfection of the building. As the last two breaks were separated by a period of only 10 days during which the calf pens were occupied by eight calves mostly for a few days only, they will be considered as one break of 47 days beginning

The effect of heat treatment on the nutritive value of milk for the young calf

“…Earlier experiments on the effect of heat treatment of milk showed that milk diets, which had been heated sufficiently to denature a large proportion of the whey proteins, had a detrimental effect on the calf . When such diets were given after the colostrum-feeding period, they tended to predispose the calves to an Escherichia coli localized intestinal infection (Wood, 1955). Associated with the denaturation of the whey proteins is a reduction in ionizable calcium (Hostettler & Stein, 1958), the release of SH groups (Zweig & Block, I~C J ) , poor clotting ability by rennet (Shillam & Roy, 1963b), and reduced digestibility, but no effect on the biological value, of the protein (Shillam & Roy, 1963a powders were prepared by the same processes as powders A and B, used in the experiments of Shillam et al ( 1 9 6 2~~ b) and Shillam & Roy (1963a, b).…”

The effect of emulsification of a milk-substitute diet by mechanical homogenization and by the addition of soya-bean lecithin on plasma lipid and vitamin A levels and on the growth rate of the newborn calf

“…Some reduction in digestibility and utilization of fat during early life may have to be accepted for economic reasons, provided such diets do not predispose calves to scouring and a high death rate. However, in our experience, diets that are slightly inferior nutritionally to whole milk usually cause a very high incidence of mortality once other predisposing factors, such as a build-up of 'infection' (Roy, Palmer, Shillam, Ingram & Wood, 1955), begin to take effect. Thus, when a milk substitute contains a relatively large amount of fat, it would seem advisable to use an homogenized product during at least the first 2 weeks of life rather than one in which the fat had been emulsified with lecithin.…”

The milk requirements of the newborn calf

“…The affecting variables were : x5 = 'occupation time' (log days). 'Occupation time' is defined by Roy, Palmer, Shillam, Ingram & Wood (1955) as the number of days that the calfhouse had been occupied after a period of vacancy. That part of the residual error due to differences between treatments within each experiment was removed before analysis, as was that part of the error due to differences between blocks in two of the experiments.…”