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- Title:
Growth performance of calves fed milk replacer or dams milk during the first week of life
- Document type:
- Konferenzbeitrag
- Contribution type:
- Vortrag / Präsentation
- Author(s):
- Vorndran, Anton; Steinhoff-Wagner, Julia
- Abstract:
- Milk contains many different bioactive compounds especially after parturition which have been shown to play an essential role in calf development, and especially postnatal gut development. The hypothesis was that during the first week of life a switch from the more nutrient dense milk to a commercial milk replacer (MR) results in less growth performance. To test the hypothesis twenty calves of the brown swiss breed were separated from their dams directly after birth and housed individually for the first week of life. They were fed twice daily with nipple buckets with unlimited milk amounts from their dam. Upon the 7th feeding ten animals were randomly chosen to transition to MR feeding with 150 g of MR per liter (13% dry matter). The other ten animals continued to receive their dams milk. The animals were weighed at the beginning of the experiment, before the 7th feeding and at the end of the experiment. Performance parameters were calculated for the whole week and statistically analysed for differences in group means using a t-test. All animals consumed high amounts of milk and there were no differences between the treatments (p = 0.62). The mean daily growth rate of > 1 kg for both treatment groups showed that all animals achieved satisfactory growth. Calves switched to MR feeding showed less average daily gain than the milk fed (p = 0.004). Also, when expressed relative to birthweight MR fed calves showed less relative body weight gain throughout the week than milk fed calves (p < 0.001). During the first week of life, calves fed their dams colostrum with subsequent milk feeding showed superior weight gain compared to calves fed colostrum and consecutive MR feeding.
- Book / Congress title:
- 75th EAAP Annual Meeting Book of Abstracts
- Congress (additional information):
- 75th Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP)
- Organization:
- European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP)
- Publisher:
- EAAP
- Publisher address:
- Rome
- Year:
- 2024
- Quarter:
- 3. Quartal
- Year / month:
- 2024-09
- Month:
- Sep
- Pages:
- 199
- E-ISBN:
- 979-12-210-6769-9
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