Friday, April 02, 2010

How Much Colostrum Does My Newborn Calf Need?

Bear with me folks. I have all this information that I have been keeping in other places and would like to get it all on this particular blog for easy reference. Now that I have the search bar at the top of the blog, I can go back and find things easily when I need to. (That is, IF I remember to label posts!)

Making sure a new born calf gets the right amount of colostrum is very important. Without colostrum, the calf does not have the immunities it needs for good health and can mean the difference between life and death.

Information from Oklahoma State regarding how much colostrum to give at birth:

A practical "rule-of-thumb" is to feed 5 to 6% of the calf's body weight within the first 6 hours and repeat the feeding when the calf is about 12 hours old. For an 80 pound calf, this will equate to approximately 2 quarts of colostrum per feeding.