regolith
Well-known member
I agree with this headline:
"Call to limit tube feeding of dairy calves"
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming ... -of-calves
There's a bit of backpedalling by certain individuals claiming that wholesale tubing isn't actually recommended... I recall about three instances this spring that I've read exactly that instruction, published by some authority or other as a guide to good calf rearing. It rankles every time I see it, that's why I remember.
I get the occasional calf where you simply can't be certain that they've suckled, or how much they've suckled, since birth. These are the calves that need human intervention to ensure they get sufficient colostrum. In the middle of the busy season the quickest and most fail-safe method may well be to tube the calf, but my experience has always been that calves that have been tubed are less likely to suckle normally at the next feed, thus the first intervention becomes the beginning of a several day fight to get the calf feeding properly.
Tubes definitely have their place; I have one, and use it from time to time. Their place is *not* for force-feeding healthy calves.
About the repeatedly asserted finding that most calves left with Mom don't get enough I have no comment. That statement has apparently been proved over and over by blood-testing calves. Yet my own observations of my newborn calves each year disprove it. One or two are slow, the occasional calf doesn't even manage to drink on its own. But probably better than 80% are stuffed full of colostrum within two hours of birth, without any human assistance.
Perhaps I err in the other direction in rearing my calves, there are times I know I've made mistakes and an individual calf didn't get enough during the first day or two. Yet my first experiences of tube feeding were negative enough (in calves refusing to suckle after tubing, I've never killed any that way) that I'd rather err in not using it enough.
"Call to limit tube feeding of dairy calves"
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming ... -of-calves
There's a bit of backpedalling by certain individuals claiming that wholesale tubing isn't actually recommended... I recall about three instances this spring that I've read exactly that instruction, published by some authority or other as a guide to good calf rearing. It rankles every time I see it, that's why I remember.
I get the occasional calf where you simply can't be certain that they've suckled, or how much they've suckled, since birth. These are the calves that need human intervention to ensure they get sufficient colostrum. In the middle of the busy season the quickest and most fail-safe method may well be to tube the calf, but my experience has always been that calves that have been tubed are less likely to suckle normally at the next feed, thus the first intervention becomes the beginning of a several day fight to get the calf feeding properly.
Tubes definitely have their place; I have one, and use it from time to time. Their place is *not* for force-feeding healthy calves.
About the repeatedly asserted finding that most calves left with Mom don't get enough I have no comment. That statement has apparently been proved over and over by blood-testing calves. Yet my own observations of my newborn calves each year disprove it. One or two are slow, the occasional calf doesn't even manage to drink on its own. But probably better than 80% are stuffed full of colostrum within two hours of birth, without any human assistance.
Perhaps I err in the other direction in rearing my calves, there are times I know I've made mistakes and an individual calf didn't get enough during the first day or two. Yet my first experiences of tube feeding were negative enough (in calves refusing to suckle after tubing, I've never killed any that way) that I'd rather err in not using it enough.
