Beef calves require correct colostrum

Get them breathing, get them up and get them fed are Dr. Claire Windeyer’s three tips for cattle producers who have just witnessed a calf being born. The latter, and the use of colostrum, drew several questions during a recent Beef Cattle Research Council webinar on calf care. Windeyer said assisted deliveries result in calves with the highest risk of colostrum deficiency, as are calves with weak sucking reflexes, twins, and orphaned or mismothered calves. But knowing when to intervene, and with what, is important. “We used to always think that we had 24 hours to get colostrum into calves,” she said during the webinar. “We’ve learned that really the efficiency is the best during that first one to six hours. The antibodies that come in, a lot more of them are going to get absorbed into the gut and then into the bloodstream in that first one to six hours.” She recommends against using dairy colostrum because its composition is quite different from beef colostrum. The average beef co