Effect of Suckling Followed by Bottle Feeding Colostrum on Immunoglobulin Absorption and Calf Survival

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Dairy claves (983 head) were left with their dams to suckle for 1 day following birth. They then were fed 1 liter of pooled colostrum and placed in individual pens. Blood samples from each calf were taken prior to and 24 h following colostral feeding. Analysis of blood for immunoglobulins G and M indicated that 42% of the calves had failed either to suckle or to absorb colostral immunoglobulins from suckling. Concentrations of IgG and IgM in serum of calves prior to bottle feeding ranged from 0 to 63 mg/ml and 0 to 15 mg/ml with means of 11.3 and 2.9 mg/ml. From bottle feeding 1 liter of colostrum, 70% of the calves absorbed colostral immunoglobulins, an average increase of 5.0 +/- 4.5 mg/ml for IgG and 1.3 +/- 1.3 mg/ml for IgM. Some calves did not absorb IgG from either suckling or bottle feeding (11.9%) and 20.8% failed to absorb IgM. Mortality rate for all experimental calves was 3.9%; for 83 agammaglobulinemic calves, 13.3%. The high rate of survival (86.7%) of the 83 agammaglobulinemic calves could be due to the local prophylactic effect of colostral immunoglobulins in the intestine even though closure had occurred.