Colostrum: few things matter more, you can’t go to an animal health talk without being told about colostrum being the building blocks of good lamb and calf health. We all seem to know this, but the animal health results on Irish farms don’t always reflect the theory being put into practice.

So lets look at colostrum for beef, sheep and dairy again.

Firstly, it is important to remember three rules of colostrum. We need great quality colostrum, given in the right quantities, and as quickly after birth as possible.

An area where we definitely need to add into our assessment of how well we manage colostrum is hygiene.

With poor hygiene we could be giving a bacterial soup to the newborn

With a suckler cow or ewe, this is about not having calves/lambs suckling from a dirty udder. It may seem excessive, but dirty udders covered in faeces is where a lot of the bacteria are. With dairy calves we are advised to milk out the cow and it is really important that whatever we use to harvest/store the colostrum is kept clean.

Bacteria in colostrum reduce its effectiveness and also, they multiply rapidly in the rich medium of colostrum.

So, with poor hygiene we could be giving a bacterial soup to the newborn. If stomach tubes are being used to give colostrum to calves/lambs, make sure these are the only job they do on farm. Have two stomach tubes, one for colostrum and one for sick animals. Between use I recommend washing them in something like Milton.

  • Anywhere colostrum is being stored, managed or handled it makes sense to have a hot water source for cleaning.
  • Any buckets used to store colostrum should be clean. A good clean bucket or two is the least it deserves.
  • Calves and lambs are born without immunity. It takes weeks and months to develop their own immune system to fight infection. As most diseases and losses occur in the first days and weeks, it’s all about the antibodies they get in the first milk.

    These antibodies are large proteins from the mother, delivered through the colostrum. This is why we stress getting colostrum into the newborn quickly. The young gut is open for the first few hours to absorb these, and with every passing hour the ability of the gut to absorb decreases. After 24 hours no absorption occurs. So the first two hours are critical. Remember calves and lambs are most vigorous for sucking at 15-30 minutes after birth.

    Lamb specifics

    Colostrum in lambs has numerous roles, immunity, gut lubrication and it also is a vital energy store. Still, one of the big killers of young lambs is the cold. Colostrum has twice the fat and energy of normal milk to fire up the young lamb’s metabolism. Watery mouth in lambs can be problematic, but the greatest tool in its prevention is focusing on colostrum with hygiene.

    Lambs require 50mls/kg at birth of good quality colostrum. Ewes with dirty udders should be milked and lambs bottled/tubed with minimum of 250mls of warm colostrum.

    The ewe’s diet pre-lambing is very important for colostrum quality and the key driver of this is protein as well as energy

    Remember if you put it in cold the lamb has to use energy to warm it up inside. The ewe’s diet pre-lambing is very important for colostrum quality and the key driver of this is protein as well as energy. A lot of silages in the last couple of years have been low in protein and have given problems. Get your silage tested and supplement with something like soyabean meal three weeks out from lambing if needed.

    Dead lambs can be opened and their stomachs checked for clotted milk to see if this first feed was consumed.

    Suckler calf

    They say it takes a suckler calf 20 minutes to suckle one litre. A suckler cow’s colostrum is usually much better quality than a dairy cow (due to less dilution). We should aim for them to get at least three litres as fast as possible.

    Slow calves or calves that have had a difficult birth should have the mothers milked and be stomach tubed. Where the mother’s udder is very dirty it may be advisable to tube them or at least milk and bottle feed. You would be surprised how many times this will stop problems. Again, this should be done rarely with careful attention paid to having springers environment clean before calving.

    The diet of the suckler cow is also important for quality production. Remember colostrum production can start two weeks out from birth, so any supplementation (if needed) should be fed two-to-three weeks out as well.

    Calf scour continues to be a challenge to the suckler calf, bad colostrum management is something that can really exacerbate this problem.

    Dairy calves

    Because dairy cows have large volumes of colostrum, quality can be lower, meaning quantity becomes important. Aim for 10% of bodyweight of the calf, in the first two hours. Again feed it warm where possible and milk the cow quickly after calving. After 12 hours even the first milk in the udder can deteriorate in quality.

    There is no significant difference in research done between tubing and suckling on a bottle and teat for the first feed. This author still prefers bottling the first feed warm in 15-30 minutes after birth. Some calves after tubing can be slow to drink their second feed. Use a good teat and a feeder with the capacity to hold 3.5 litres.

    There are few, if any jobs, that will give you a return like taking colostrum management to a new level this spring

    The big area I see, where we can improve with dairy calves, is hygiene and also testing quality. Every farm should consider a Brix refractometer this spring. Keep it clean and aim for colostrum above 24%. It is a very handy tool also for checking cows at first milk after calving and having not been milked out for 8-12 hours.

    Dairy farmers do more handling of colostrum and it’s not unusual to leave it in buckets pooled for 24 hours in sheds. This is a real hygiene and quality bottleneck for colostrum. This is nature’s free gift and not only does it help the calf for the first weeks of life, it actually has been shown that it is directly linked to better lifetime production for heifers. If you’re storing colostrum, get it into the fridge ASAP and store for no more than 48 hours in a fridge. Colostrum can be frozen for up to a year.

    This is best done in flat packs to help thaw easily. All stored colostrum should be tested, and only put the best stuff in the freezer. When thawing in water, if the water is too hot for your hand then it’s too hot for the colostrum. Never microwave it because you will denature the proteins in it.

    There are few, if any jobs, that will give you a return like taking colostrum management to a new level this spring, I promise that large volumes of good quality colostrum, fed cleanly and quickly will make for healthy calves.

    Testing quality on farm

    While there are numerous ways of assessing quality, the best, quickest and cheapest is the only one I’m recommending.

    You can purchase a good Brix refractometer online for €15. It is useful for suckler and sheep farmers also with a similar or possible higher cut off above 23%.

    It is most useful on a dairy farm, where we handle a lot of colostrum and volumes and where quality can be a bigger issue.

    When milking out a suckler cow, take great care and only do so with proper restraint.

    Testing black or white

    Countless times when I’ve been on farms, I’ve questioned colostrum management and got the feeling people were thinking: “He is not on about this again.” I am often met with “that’s one area we are doing well on” to avoid arguments.

    It transformed my calf health on farm

    There is a black or white test you can do to answer this question. Testing for passive transfer by blood testing calves between two-to-seven days is one test we under utilise on our farms. This blood sample can measure serum protein, which reflects how much antibodies have been absorbed in the blood.

    It can also be done on lambs although this is less frequently used.

    I met a farmer at Christmas who focused on colostrum management two years ago through Knowledge Transfer. He said: “It transformed my calf health on farm.”

    Good colostrum management is probably the most effective thing you can do this spring.