How reliable is your refrigerator?

 

Why is refrigerator reliability a significant question? Storage of animal biological products, especially vaccines, should be in the range of 36 to 45F. The leading cause of immune response failure is vaccines that are improperly stored (Torell, R  "Back to basics:Frozen Vaccine", 2006)

 

A study of 129 farm refrigerators found that only 1/3 of them maintained the recommended temperature (36-45F) 95 percent of the time (T.E. Fife and Others, "Case Study: Handling and management of animal health products by Idaho producers and retailers." Professional Animal Scientist 29 (June, 2013) 313-320).

Fully 1/3 of farm refrigerators maintained the recommended temperature less than 5 percent of the time!

 

Part of the issue may very well be the age of these refrigerators. In this study 57 percent of them were over 10 years old. Over 15 years old - 34 percent - really old. When Mom got a new one for the kitchen the used one went to the barn?

 

Recommendations from the study:

• Monitor refrigerator performance with a thermometer - one that can be seen easily when moving products into or out of the refrigerator.
• Min-max thermometers give very useful information, especially for monitoring unusual events that may freeze vaccines.
• Full-size refrigerators are preferred compared to mini or dormitory-type units for maintaining more uniform temperatures.

 

 

When to feed water after feeding milk

 

A client question was about how long to wait after feeding whole pasteurized milk  to feed water. The data were pretty thin but the calf care person observed that "some calves were drinking 4 to 5 quarts of water as soon as the water was fed." Neither the age of the calves was specified nor what proportion of the calves were the big drinkers.

Answer:

• Milk goes into the abomasum.
• Milk in the abomasum mixes with enzymes and acids. Within a few minutes casein protein reacts with rennet to form curds. Whey can move on to the small intestine.
• Water goes into the rumen and then progresses through the digestive system.
• At birth the rumen volume  is likely to be less than 1 liter.
• By 3 weeks rumen volume has been measured at roughly 3 liters.
• Given another week or two we may estimate rumen volume approaching 4 liters.

So, will water drinking change the digestion of the milk?

In my experience caring for calves the "big" drinkers generally did not include the youngest calves - less than three weeks old. Further, only a small percentage of calves were "big" drinkers - somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of calves between three and six weeks of age.Thus the practical significance of the question is somewhat limited - not very many calves are involved.

If most of these "big" drinkers are 4 to 5 weeks old the rumen volume is great enough to hold most of the water they are drinking. If the water is in the rumen it cannot have any effect on milk digestion.

From a practical point of view I like to see us feed water while the calves are still standing up from the milk feeding. If the farm routine makes it convenient to feed water 10 to 15 minutes after feeding milk I recommend staying with the present routine.

 The goal is to get calves to drink water since water consumption drives calf starter grain intake. Given our goal of efficient fermentation of grain we recall that for every pound of grain eaten the calves will need four pounds (2 quarts) of water.

For the scientists readers, I cannot recall a single research report that examined the consequences of feeding water at different intervals post-milk feeding at varying water temperatures under given environmental conditions.

34% Passive Transfer Failure

Yes, 34 percent passive transfer failure among 882 calves from 49 farms in the state of Washington. 

This study, completed in 2010, reported wide variation among farms. Of the 18 calves that were sampled on each of the 49 farms, 2 farms had no calves below 5.2g/dL blood serum total protein. In contrast 7 farms had 13 or more calves out of the 18 calves sampled (>70%) with passive transfer failure.

Only 36 percent of the farms had 20 percent or fewer calves with passive transfer failure. The industry standard for profitable calf survival and health is 90% above 5.0g/dL and 75% at 5.5g/dL and greater.

Colostrum management practices associated with high rates of passive transfer failure in this Washington State study were:

• Who collected the colostrum - passive transfer failure was 3.7 times greater if a regular milker collected the colostrum compared to other personnel.
• Evaluating colostrum quality - passive transfer failure was 2.3 times greater if the colostrum was NOT evaluated for antibody concentration.
• Adding supplements to the colostrum - passive transfer failure was 8.9 times greater if a supplement was added to the colostrum.

 No data were reported regarding the species and quantity of bacteria present in the colostrum   

Reference:  WSU Vet Med Newsletter    

Managing Milk Replacer Feeding to Encourage Starter Intake

 

Weaning intensively-fed calves takes more managment skills than when feeding survival levels of milk or milk replacer. Calves need to increase their intake of calf starter grain enough to support maintenance and growth needs before milk is withdrawn if a smooth transition to the grain-water ration is going to take place.

 

This principle was tested in another feeding trial with dairy calves.  [Ballou, M.A. and Others, " Breed and plane of milk-replacer nutrition influences the performance of per-and postweaned dairy calves." Professional Animal Scientist 29:116-123 (2013).

Both Holstein and Jersey calves were used in the trial. Control calves were compared to intensive fed calves. 

 

Control calves were fed 1 pound of powder per day of 21-21 milk replacer. High-feed calves were fed: Holsteins 2.5 pounds of 29-21 powder per day and Jerseys  1.5 pounds of 29-26 powder per day.

 

The weaning program?

 

"On day 42 of the study period, the calves were only fed their MR once daily in the a.m. to encourage starter consumption. When calves were consuming at least 900 g as fed of calf starter for 2 consecutive days, the calf was completely weaned off MR." (p117)

 

The 1#MR/day Holstein calves on day 42 were eating about 1# of starter daily. This in contrast to the 2.5#MR/day calves the were eating only 1/3 as much. 

 

The 1#MR/day calves got cut back to 1/2 a pound a day on day 42. But, the 2.5#/day calves still received 1.25# of MR in their one feeding starting on day 42.

 

The calves that were cut back to 1/2#/day increased their starter intake 77% in the next 7 days. The calves cut back to 1.25#/day increased their starter intake from 1/3 pound to just under a pound in the same 7 days (150% increase). My experience managing my own intensively-fed calves was similar; perhaps even a greater rate of increase because I only fed 1#MR/day during the weaning period.

 

Remember that calves were supposed to reach 2 pounds of starter intake daily before they were weaned. This means that a calf care person had to monitor feed intakes. 

 

The 1#MR/day calves were weaned at 52 days.

The 2.5#MR/day calves were weaned 56 days regardless of their starter intake.

 

The intensive fed calves never got up to 2 pounds of starter before they were weaned - the trial ended at 56 days. They floundered around for 2 weeks on their grain:water ration until their feed intakes recovered to pre-weaning levels. Another profit opportunity lost.

 

My lessons from this trial?

• Start cutting back on milk sooner than 42 days - maybe around 35 days. That will give more days to come up on grain before milk is stopped.
• Regardless of how high the maximum feeding rate goes (8, 10 or 12 quarts of MR or milk daily) cut back to only 4 quarts of milk or 1#MR per day rather than 1/2 of maximum. Calves will come up more quickly on grain.
• Manage for growth rather than convenience. Keep calves on milk until they reach the farm's threshold of grain intake even if this is not convenient.
• If calving rates force calves out of their pre-weaned housing early try to come up with some way to continue the once-a-day milk feeding until their grain intakes come up.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forage for Weaned Calves

 

In a recent article, "Inspection Time: How to do an effective calf walkthrough," by Steve Hayes published in Progressive Dairyman (May 1, 2013, vol 27, No. 7, pp78-79) there was a really good note about managing forages for weaned calves.

 

"Do not change forage consumption for the first week in group pens. If no forage was offered to calves on milk, then no forage should be offered in the first week in the pen. Forage can be successfully introduced after one week."

 

Great advice.  I would add my recommendation that when the forage is introduced for the first time in these pens I like to see only enough fed the first week that they can clean up in a short time each day. For example, enough hay or haylage to last for an hour (assumes enough space so all the calves have access to the forage at the same time).

 

SeeTransition calf feeding management  for additional tips for managing adding forages to the ration.

 Caution: Research Findings may not be Valid!

In the most recent issue of the Journal of Dairy Science you can find an article, "Effect of feeding maternal colostrum or plasma-derived or colostrum-derived colostrum replacer on passive transfer of immunity, health, and performance of preweaned heifer calves." JDS 96:3247-3256

 

Hey, just what we need. A comparison of three sources of immunity for our newborn calves. 

 

Tucked into the description of treatments is this short sentence:

"...a decision was made to standarize the volume of solution fed to all calves to eliminate volume fed as a confounder (Jones et al., 2004) and because mass of IgG fed is more important than concentration (Stott and Fellah, 1983)." 

 

Thus, rather than following the manufacturers' mixing directions to use either 1.3 or 1.5 quarts of water the colostrum replacer products were prepared to result in 4 quarts of solution. This way all calves would be fed 4 quarts of either maternal colostrum or 4 quarts of colostrum replacer.

 

I went back and read both of the articles cited in that sentence. Jones and others in their study fed the colostrum replacer mixed with volumes recommended by the manufacturer - so, I cannot see how that citation supports mixing up the colostrum replacer to equal 4 quarts when the manufacturers recommend using between 1.3 and 1.5 quarts of water.

 

Stott and Fellah's article reports a strong positive linear relationship between concentration of antibodies and the rate of absorption - so, I cannot see how the citation supports mixing up the colostrum replacer to equal 4 quarts when the manufacturers recommend using between 1.3 and 1.5 quarts of water. This procedure creates a solution that has a low concentration of antibodies.

 

In my humble opinion this study was badly biased in favor of maternal colostrum by setting up the two colostrum replacers for impaired antibody absorption.

 

Moral of the story: the devil is in the details - if you can, ask about how the research was done before you accept the findings as valid.  

Coliform Growth Demonstration

 

Have you seen the coliform growth demonstration? It uses coffee grounds to represent the bacteria. Increasing amounts of grounds are placed in 7 self-sealing plastic bags. Each bag represents 20 minutes of bacterial growth in cow colostrum at 39C (102F).

 

Directions for making both a small (1 quart bags) and a large (4 quart bags) demonstration kit can be found at this location  Coliform Demo Instructions

I use it with both individuals and groups to get across the message about the rapid growth potential of coliform bacteria in warm colostrum.