Keeping new calves healthy means watching closely for signs of sickness shortly after birth. Dr. Geof Smith is a veterinarian and professor at North Carolina State University. He told a group of Wisconsin dairy producers to watch for signs of abomasal bloat. Smith says, “What we see is calves go off milk, they look depressed, they’re droopy, sometimes they don’t want to get up, and they have abdominal distensions, so they have gas in their abomasum, so they’re distended on their right side or sometimes on both sides.”
Smith says it’s unclear what exactly causes abomasal bloat. “It probably involves a bacteria, but mostly, we think it is a nutritional problem associated with things that slow abomasal emptying.”Smith says this is different from adult cattle with rumen bloat. He says this usually happens within the first several days when gas accumulates in the last chamber of the stomach and there is very little in the first three chambers. Smith says calves often die if not treated promptly.
Dr. Smith says larger, more concentrated meals take longer to pass through a calf’s stomach, and that doesn’t help the young calf. “If we feed very concentrated solutions, that’s going to stay in the stomach longer periods of time, so if you do have bacteria present, they now have time to multiply and produce gas, and they have a very energy-rich substance to grow on, whether that’s milk, could be milk replacer, or it could be oral electrolytes.”
Smith says measuring total solids and consistent mixing of milk supplements or replacers is important to keep food moving quickly through a new calf’s system.
Dr. Smith is also a proponent of getting as much colostrum into newborn calves as possible in the first feeding to strengthen its immune system. He tells Brownfield he commonly gets a gallon of colostrum into newborn jersey calves in the first feeding, saying they may not be as hungry in the second feeding, but they benefit from the absorption of more antibodies to fight off disease.
Source: Brownfield
