Calf management

Calf Care

Care of calf and cow at birth
A few days before the probable date of calving, cow should be transferred to individual calving pens. Preferably 1 to 2 weeks before the expected calving date. The number of calving pens required on a farm depends on the number of breedable cows and heifer, generally 5 per cent of this number. Ample amount of drinking water, laxative feed and generous supply of bedding may be provided. The calving pen should be scrupulously cleaned and sterilized before brining in the cow. Antiseptic solution like tincture Iodine or Povidone iodine, thread, scissors, lubricants like liquid paraffin, vegetable oils, obstetrical equipment like hook, snare, calf puller, wire saw; emergency drugs like local anesthetics, antibiotics, analgesic, calciumboroglugonate, other items like emergency light, towel, soap, buckets, aprons etc. should be made available in all time in the calving pen. In villages or farmers those who are maintaining only one or two animals must tie the animal in advanced stage of pregnancy separately under visibility. It must be protected from predators. The floor should be dry and clean and having clean grass cover is essential. The cow should not be tethered too close, it must be tied with sufficient rope so that animal can move freely and care the new born easily during night time when calving is unnoticed. If any abortion, calves should be examined thoroughly to ascertain the possible cause for abortion (age of the foetus, condition, necrotic foci if any etc). In such case the calving pen should be thoroughly sterilized with 4 per cent caustic soda.

Calving pen

It is a individual loose box or stall used for calving, which should be 3 m x 4 m size (12 m2) and well ventilated. Sufficient lighting is essential.
It provided better protection to the cow and calf and avoids disturbances from other cows.
Special attention can be provided for which attendant quarters may be nearer to calving pen.
Attendant quarters may be established nearer to calving pen to monitor calving process during night time.

Management immediately after calving
Udder and hind quarter should be washed with lukewarm water containing an antiseptic solution of potassium permanganate lotion and dried with clean cloth. Cows may be milked to relieve the pressure from the udder If day old weaning is not practiced the calf can be allowed to remain with the mother in the calving pen for 7 to 10 days. Otherwise the calves can be removed immediately to calf pen. The maternal instinct is more, cow’s eyes can be blindfolded before the calf is removed. The placenta is to be expelled within 12 to 24 hours after parturition. if it is not expelled in 24 hours, seek the help of a Veterinarian be removed manually. Before manual removal the body temperature should be noted. In case of pyrexia, attempt should be made systemically to reduce fever. Otherwise systemic infection may establish. The cow should be monitored carefully for signs of any metabolic disorders like milk fever, grass tetany, Ketosis, acidosis and should be treated immediately.

	Colostrum feeding
Colostrum is the first milk secreted after parturition. It contains large amount of gama globulins which are nothing but anit-bodies produced by the cow against antigens encounter during her life including those against man disease producing organisms. Absorption of these antibodies provides the calf with an umbrella of passive immunity.

Composition of colostrums and milk

Colostrums is highly fortified source of nutrient having 7 times the protein and twice the total solids of normal milk, thus it gives an early boost in portion and solid intake.
It contains higher amount of minerals and vitamin A which are essential to combat disease. Ingestion of these through colostrums substantially increase the calf’s survivability.
Colostrums give a laxative effect which is helpful in expulsion of muconium (first faeces).
The cows should be vaccinated against contagious and infectious diseases which help to increase the quantity and quality of gama globulins in colostrums.
Similarly colostrums of mature cow posses large quantities of gama globulins because they have greater chance of exposure to many infection.
The gama globulins must be absorbed as such across the intestinal wall into blood stream without being broken down into the constituent peptides or amino acids.
This permeability is rapidly lost after the first few hours of life. Many studies have shown that these globulins pass across the gut wall at the most rapid rates during the first 1-2 hours of life.
Taking this into view. It will be highly useful to feed colostrums in the first 15-30 minutes followed by a second dose in approximately 10-12 hours.
The absorptive cells lining the small intestine are immature at birth. In this stage they indiscriminately take up large molecules like immunoglobins.
As the calf grows older hour by hour, there is a transition of epithelia cells of small intestine from immature type to mature type which cannot allow large protein molecules.
As the more and more cells mature the capacity of the calf to absorb immunoglobins diminishes proportionately until ‘closure’ when no more absorption can take place.
This phenomenon is called ‘gut closure’. Concentration of antibodies at ‘closure’ is directly related to the disease resistance of the calf.
If at closure the calf had absorbed only a small amount of immunoglobins from colostrums, the diminishing concentration soon puts the calf into a critical immune position.
This increases morbidity and often leads to mortality of the calves.
Quantity of colostrums to be fed is 1/10th of body weight.
- 15-30 minutes of life - 5-8 % of body weight
- 10-12 hours of life - 5-8 % of body weight
- 2nd day - 10% of body weight
- 3rd day - 10% of body weight
Excess colostrums can be milked out daily otherwise the calves can drink in excess and results in calf scour.
The excess colostrums can be stored by refrigeration and can be used to other calves or orphan calves.
Colostrums can also be freezed and stored indefinitely. Colostrums can also be fermented naturally and stored for 5-7 days and can be used.
Colostrums substitute: in case of non availability of colostrums due to accidental death of mother or agalactia colostrums substitute can be used.
It can be prepared by mixing 2 whole eggs in one litre of milk and 30 ml of castor oil. It should be fed three times in a day.

Composition of Colostrum

Constituents	Colostrum of cow milk	Colostrum of buffalo milk	Milk
Total solids	28.30	31.0	12.86
Ash	1.58	0.9	0.72
Fat	0.15-1.2	4.0	4.0
Lactose	2.5	2.2	4.8
Casein	4.76	7.7	2.8
Albumin	1.5	3.6	0.54
Globulin	15.06	12.5	-
Total protein	21.32	23.8	3.34

Weaning

Making the calf independent of its mother is known as weaning.
Under early weaning system, the cow is not allowed to suckle its calf.
Instead, the cow is completely milked out and required quantities of whole milk or skim milk are fed to the calf.

	Disadvantages
Weaning is a problematic in Bos indicus and buffaloes due to strong maternal instinct. 0 day weaning can cause reduced milk yield in such animals, and also cause early drying and temperamental problems.

Important guidelines in young calf rearing/ milk feeding

In intensive rearing of calves when day old weaning is practiced following points should be adhered strictly.
Each calf should be treated individually; it should be weighed weakly and feed according to the body weight and growth response.
Group feeding should be avoided to minimize over feeding or under feeding.
Calves should be fed twice or more times in a day. One time feeding may cause indigestion and diarrhea results in dehydration.
Milk container, milk pails/buckets and other appliances should be kept clean and hygienic.
Milk should be boiled and cooled to body temperature (39°C) before feeding.
Milk feeding should be 3 or 4 times in a day during the first weak and can be reduced to 2 times in a day up to 90 days of age.
Milk allowance should be correct to the body weight of the calf and over feeding should be avoided in the first month of age.
If the calves not consume milk, the next allowance should be withheld and it can be drenched with 30-50 ml of castor oil.
If the milk or milk replacer contains large amount of foam, it should be removed by drawing a paddle on the surface or by filtering through a clean cloth.
Foam causes the calves to take in entrapped air which may lead to bloating.
Clean drinking water should be made available all times and the pen floor should be sloped adequately and the pen should kept dry always.
To encourage early development of rumen calf should be provided with good quality of hay (leguminous hay) by the first week of age and the same should be provided in a hay rack.
Calves should be dewormed in the first week itself for ascariasis.
Antibiotics and feed additives should be mixed in the milk or concentrate to improve the growth rate.

	Training of calf for pail feeding
Weaned calves should be trained to drink milk from pails so that feeding management is easier. Generally crossbred calves learn quickly to drink milk from pail or nipple. But it is little difficult to train buffalo calves. Buffalo calves and lazy and slow in learning to drink milk or milk replacer from the pail or bucket. Training of buffalo calves required patience and efforts. The scheduled quantity of boiled and cooled milk poured in the milk pail and should be moved to the calf. Care should be taken to avoid frightening. The calves should not be forced to drink milk by immersing the head in to the bail. Frightened calves may refuse to come close to the pail. The attendant should first dip his two fingers (index and middle fingers) in to the milk after cleaning and kept close to the mouth of calf. After tasting the milk calf will start suckle the fingers. Gradually the fingers should be lowered to the bail and should be dipped in to the milk. When the calf takes one or two mouthfulls of milk remove the fingers. This process may be repeated whenever the calf stops drinking and lifts its head.

Feeding management of calf

Reticulo-rumen is non functional in calves and hence feeding of calves should be treated as non-ruminant and they are not equipped to utilize cellulose.
The calves cannot utilize roughages containing higher amount of cellulose.
To encourage the early development of rumen and reticulum the calves should be fed with good quality leguminous hay and other roughages.
Because of non availability of good quality protein due to lack of ruminal microbial digestion.
The calves have little capacity to utilize non-protein nitrogenous coumpo0unds and therefore substance like urea should not be included in their ration.
Due to the same reason, B-complex vitamins also are dietary essential for calves in addition to vitamin A and D.
For digestion of milk and enzymatic digestion in the abomasums and small intestine is more important that bacterial fermentation in the rumen, which is more wasteful.
To avoid this oesophageal groove exist in the reticulum connecting the oesophagus with the omasum.
During nursing and milk feeding, the sides of the groove are raised by reflex action to form a tunnel through which milk passes from oesophagus to omasum by-passing the rumen and reticulum.
This continues to function even after considerable development of the rumen if milk feeding is continued.

Nurse- Cow method

Most of the draught breeds produce milk just sufficient to meet the requirement of calves and calves are allowed to suckle form the mother.
But in case of crossbred cows which produce more milk than the requirement of calf, to regulate the milk production and also to avoid over feeding of calves leaving one or two teats for calf while milk out the other is practiced.
In nurse- cow method 3 or 4 calves are allowed to suckle one nurse cow.
To avoid calf rejection the mucous at the time of calving is applied to all the calves to be adopted by the nurse cow and placed before her to lick and dry.
This will help to avoid rejection of calf. The number of calves to be allotted depends on the production level of nurse cow.
Use of nurse- cow is an easy alternate way of raising calves and required least managemental skills.

Early weaning and whole milk feeding

This method calves are weaned at birth and trained to drink milk from nipple or pail.
The calves should be weighed every week and the quantity of milk to be fed is calculated accordingly. Recommended feeding schedule- I ( According to age of the calf)
If the farmers are not able to weigh the calves as per schedule, calves can also be fed according to its birth weight. . Recommended feeding schedule- II ( According to its body weight)
The general guide line is 8, 9, 10, 8 and 5 per cent of the birth weight during 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5t week respectively.
Those farmer do not have any mean of finding out the birth weight of calves may judge whether calve is small, medium or large and they can follow the schedule category 2, 4 and 6 respectively (from above table).

Economic raising of calve with limited whole milk and calf starter

For economic way of raising calves, the whole milk can be substituted with skim milk and calf starter. Skim milk is deficient in energy.
It can be supplemented by incorporating grain mixture, sucrose, glucose, dextrin, jaggery, oil and lard.
Calves do not have much capacity to utilize sucrose before 4-6 weeks of age and incorporation of this before this age may cause diarrhoea.
Jaggery is a cheaply available product. A feeding schedule in which skim milk partially replace whole milk from 5th day and jaggery is introduced from the second week can be followed to produce growth rate similar to whole milk feeding schedule.

Feeding schedule for Calf-I

Week of age	Whole milk	Legume hay	Calf starter
4th to 7th day	10% of body weight	ad lib.	ad lib.
2-8th week	10% of body weight	ad lib.	ad lib.
9th week	10% of body weight – 2 kg	ad lib.	ad lib.
10th week	10% of body weight – 4 kg	ad lib.	ad lib.

Feeding schedule for Calf -II

Feeding category	Birth weight	Weeks ( kg of whole milk / day)					Total milk
Feeding category	Birth weight	1	2	3	4	5	Total milk
1	23-29.5	2.25	2.5	2.7	2.25	1.8	80.0
2	30-33	2.5	2.7	3.0	2.7	1.8	90.0
3	33.5-37.5	2.7	3.0	3.5	3.0	1.8	100.0
4	38-42	3.0	3.5	4.0	3.5	2.25	115.0
5	42.5-46.5	3.5	4.0	4.5	3.5	2.25	125.0
6	47-51	4.0	4.5	5.0	4.0	2.25	140.0
7	Above 51.5	4.5	5.0	5.5	4.5	2.25	150.0

Milk replacers

Milk replacers or milk substitutes consist basically of skim milk powder and lard or vegetable fat although a proportion of butter milk powder and whey powder is often included.
A small proportion of glucose, soyabean flour and cereal flour may also be added together with certain minerals and vitamins.
If good quality milk replacer is used, there is no need for feeding any whole milk after the Colostrum feeding.

General characteristics of good quality milk replacers

Contains minimum 50 per cent spray dried skim milk powder
Contains 10-15 per cent stabilized high quality fat, mainly lard homogenized into skim milk or butter milk before spray drying.
Supplemented with vitamin A, E and B12.
Incorporated with antibiotic feed additives.
Should contain 22-25 per cent good quality protein.
Should not contain starch or fibre.
Should be readily dispersible in water.
Should flow well as a powder for automatic feeding equipment.
Milk replacer should be mixed in correct proportion in warm water, since dilutions which are too weak or too strong tends to create digestive problems.
Optimum ratio of milk replacer (kg) and water (litre) is 1: 8.
Good milk replacer composition should contain spray dried skimmed milk powder of 50 parts, dried whey of 10 pars and non-milk source of 40 parts.

A good milk replacer suggested by Ohio workers is as follows,

Item	Amount in kg
Dried skim milk	70
Dried whey	18
Lecithin	2
Animal fat	10
Dicalcium phosphate	1.7
Copper sulphates, Ferrous sulphates, Manganese sulphates, Antibiotic	Traces

Partial milk replacers

The difference between partial milk replacer from milk replacer is that it does not contain high proportions of milk or skim milk powder.

An example of a partial milk replacer is

Components	parts
Wheat	10
Linseed meal	40
Milk	23
Coconut oil	10
Butyric acid	0.3
Citric acid	1.5
Mineral mixture	3.0
Antibiotic	0.2
	100

Calf starter

They are first day concentrate mixture fed to calves.
Calves starts eating small amount of dry starter from the 2nd week of life.
To train them to eat starter mix, the following procedure may be useful.
A calf starter should be highly palatable.
It should be high energy (75% TDN) and contain 14-16 per cent digestible crude protein.
Calf starter may be fed on free-choice basis until the calf starts consuming about 1-1.5 kg of the starter mix a day after which the amount may be restricted.
Generally calves reach this stage by 2 ½ months to 3 months of age.
Milk feeding can be discontinued earliest which the calf is consuming 0.4-0.5 kg of concentrate per day deepening upon the breed. A great variety of calf starter are available.
The constituents of calf starter may be altered according to the availability of feed in the region and cost.

Composition of calf starter

Ingredients	Parts
Maize	42
GNC	35
Wheat bran or rice bran	10
Fish meal	10
Mineral mixture	2
Salt	1