Weaning without crashing

I am composing for the first time on a smart phone. Whew!
 tuesday I had a discussion with dairymen from around the US about intensive feeding programs for preweaned calves. All of them were feeding between 6 and 9 qts past. milk or a high protein milk replacer mixed @ 15% solids (10 oz makes 2 qts).

All of them had the same experience - calves grow well on lots of milk, calves on lots of milk do not eat much starter grain, whenthey do begin eating grain it is later than whenthey were feeding much less milk.  and, we all are having difficulty maintaining good growth rates after weaning.

That line of discussion moved right into the biology of rumen delopment (how fermentation of starter drives papillae growth, 3 weeks to get enough papillae surface to absorb enough energy for both maintenance and growth for 180 lb calf). We all agreed to review our weaning programs - cut back on milk early enough to get inreased starter intakes long enough to have adequate rumen development before dropping all milk.

[Wrote this one on Wednesday evening - somehow it never was posted - so much for smart phones.]

Timely Treatments for Calves

 

If you have not already read the article, "When and Why to Treat Calves" by Sheila McGuirk (Hoard's Dairyman, March 25, 2013, page 209) I suggest you take time to read it carefully. She has packed a lot into a short article.

 

I was especially caught by this  sentence at the end of the article:

"Regular health screening examinations of calves are extremely important as early detection of problems [underline added] along with effective antibiotic selection escalate the odds of a favorable outcome of targeted treatment protocols."

 

This blockbuster sentence summarizes what I see is often the difference between effective and ineffective health care for calves.

 

Not only give the proper treatment BUT GIVE THE TREATMENT ON TIME!

 

 

   

Updating Blood Serum Total Protein Standards

 

I have been considering raising the standards for blood serum total protein levels published on the www.atticacows.com website.

As of the March 25, 2013 issue of Hoard's Dairyman column by Sheila McGuirk I just better get on the stick and make those changes. (page 226). It's past time to raise the bar.

Dr. McGuirk's column says this:

"If at least 80 percent of the tested calves have an STP that is equal or greater than 5.5gm/dl, or 90 percent of the calves are equal or greater than 5.2gm/dl, the herd's colostrum program is good."

There we are. So far as I am concerned that's the standard for "Good" colostrum programs.

They Do Great Until I Wean Them

 

Well, back in USA at the Attica Vet Clinic.  But my head is still in HaverfordWest, Wales at the farmer meeting last Friday.

 

Six different farmers appeared to have the same problem. Their calves were growing well until they were weaned. Then at weaning they seems to stop growing or maybe even lose weight.

 

What did they have in common? Three were spring block-calving herds that fed nearly ad lib milk up to 8 to 10 quarts of milk a day. Three were continuous calving herds with automatic computer feeders feeding at least 8 quarts of milk powder a day. The calves were getting a lot of nutrients from milk!

 

All six had observed that while in full milk ration their calves began eating starter grain only when four or five weeks of age. And, even then, they did not eat much grain.

 

We spent a few minutes reviewing the processes of rumen development. 

• special microorganisms are needed in the rumen to ferment a mixture of water and grains thus digesting both proteins and carbohydrates. 

• how the fermentation of grain (or very young grasses) releases butyric acid leading to the growth of rumen papillae.
• rumen papillae development takes roughly three weeks from when regular grain consumption begins - this provides enough surface to absorb nutrients. 

Then we talked about how they weaned their calves off of milk.  The block-calving herds either stopped milk feeding rather abruptly in either one or two days. The computer-feeder herds had a three or four-day step-down weaning period.

 

The bottomline in all six cases is that not enough time was provided on a reduced milk-feeding program before weaning to provide for increasing amounts of grain intake leading to adequate rumen papillae growth. As a group we tried to come up with several practical ways to cut back on milk feeding volumes. 

 

Great group of farmers. Great Welsh lamb meat pies for lunch. Yum.    

Comparing Milk and Milk Powder

 

Question yesterday at our meeting on Alweston Farm, Alweston, Sherborne, Dorset:

"Last year I changed from feeding milk powder to feeding milk. My calves are doing much better on the milk. Why is that?"

 

Details that came out were that she had been feeding a high quality milk powder that was, as she could recall, 20%protein and 18%oil (fat). It was mixed at the label rate of 100g powder makes 1 litre and she was feeding 4 litres a day [ you and I can figure this out = total dry matter per day was 400g.]

 

The milk she fed was a somewhat inconsistent  50:50 blend of tank milk [she was getting paid for 3.0% protein and 4.0% fat, probably about 13% solids] and milk of an unknown composition from fresh cows whose milk was not ready to sell. A reasonable guess on this blend  might be 15% solids, 3.4% protein and 5% fat. She continued to feed 4 litres volume daily. At 15% solids 4 litres a day equals 600g dry matter daily (4 litres =4000g, 4000 x .15 = 600g d.m.)

On a dry matter basis we can estimate this 3.4% protein, 5% fat milk to equal 23% protein and 33% fat. [.034/.15=.23x100=23%;  .05/.15=.33x100=33%]

So let's compare intakes:

Milk powder: 400 grams total dry matter, 72g fat (400 x .18 fat)

Milk: 600 grams total dry matter, 198g fat (600 x .33 fat)

Back to her question: "My calves are doing much better on the milk. Why is that?" Recall she was feeding equal liquid volumes of both reconstituted milk  powder and whole milk.

Dry matter intake drives growth. Feed more dry matter a calf grows more rapidly.

Milk fat is the major source of energy for a young calf. With enough protein as well, feed more highly digestible energy a calf grows more rapidly.

The group discussion then launched off on procedures for feeding milk powder with everyone agreeing that mixing powder at 100g/litre was really wrong. And, most of the farmers present fed more than 4 litres a day, especially in cold rainy weather which seems to have been a continuous state since last July.

Have a good day.

Sam

"Problems with Frozen Colostrum

 

 Yesterday during our on-farm meeting in Essex two problems emerged concerning frozen colostrum.

• Farmers said, "It takes too long to thaw it out so I can feed the calf!"
• I observed that the three farms freezing extra colostrum were putting colostrum directly into the freezer directly after milking the fresh cow.

Too long to thaw       I asked how they packaged the colostrum for freezing. "In plastic containers. You know, one or two litre bottles that milk comes in from the market."

 

Ah, the root of the  problem now emerges. Too little surface area exposed to the hot water. We talked about using freezer-quality self-sealing plastic bags - one litre in a four-litre bag - get lots of surface area for quicker thawing. I could see the "aha " moment on two of the women's faces as they worked out the way they would use this idea at home.

 

Warm colostrum going into freezer    After a brief review of how rapidly bacteria multiply in colostrum at cow body temperature we talked about how slowly freezers actually chill colostrum. Lots of opportunity the first couple of hours for bacteria to multiply.

 

Using an empty bottle that was at hand we went through a demonstration of how bottles of frozen ice could be used to rapidly chill freshly-collected colostrum to 16C. The herdsman on our host farm, Jody, observed, "We should do that for the colostrum we save from the morning milking to feed to a calf that afternoon. Wouldn't that be better than letting the colostrum sit warm in the milk room all day?"

 

Now, that comment really made me feel good.

 

By the way,  for lunch at our host farm we sat in the old barn now used as a shop. It seemed to have really old beams so I asked about its origins. The owner, Nick, said he really didn't now exactly when it was built - just sometime in the late 1600's. 

 

   

Cooked Antibodies are Just Food

My last three meetings surfaced the same issue in colostrum management. Thawing frozen colostrum was done with the hottest water available. And, not only did the calf care person use very hot water, in order to speed up the process of thawing and warming the water bath was dumped several times and refilled with very hot water.

Given the frequent absence of a thermometer on many farms I have continued to recommend the "finger-dipping" method of estimating water temperature for warming and thawing colostrum. That is, the water can be just a hot as one can stand by dipping your fingers into the water - since everyone is different we end up with water varying from high 120's to mid-130's.

Still in England today - headed off shortly for lunch at a local pub - they have a special for St. Patrick's day. Then home to consume the 5 pounds of the London paper "The Sunday Times."