Standard Operating Procedures:
Guidelines for Colostral Management
MANAGEMENT OF COLOSTRAL SUPPLY

Selection of Donors
Biosecurity Concerns:

1. Identify diseases of importance to the operation.
   
2. Identify disease problems that can be influenced by colostral management.
   
3. For problems that can transfer via colostrum (e.g. Johne's disease, BLV) colostral donors should be preselected based on negative status by testing.
   
4. Do not pool colostrum. Feed colostrum from individual dams to individual calves.
   
5. Feed colostrum only from the calf's dam or a preselected donor.
   
6. Clean teats and udder before milking colostrum from the dam.

Quality concerns:

1. Healthy dams with prolonged residence at the farm.
   
2. No precalving milking or milk loss.
   
3. Only first milking colostrum should be given during the first 12 hours of life.
   
4. For diseases that can be prevented, or decreased by colostrum (e.g. E. coli K99, Clostridial disease) donors should be vaccinated appropriately.
   

• Monitor colostral quality with a colostrometer and exclude lower quality colostrum from the first feedings.

• For calves whose dam produces inadequate colostrum, use colostrum from a preselected donor
  
• Maintain a frozen bank of high quality colostrum for use as needed.
  
• Frozen colostrum should be stored from individual donors, identified as described above.

MANAGEMENT OF COLOSTRAL FEEDING

• Remove the calf from the maternity area as soon as possible.
  
• Do not allow calf to suckle from the dam or other maternity pen cows.
  
• Feed a minimum of 5% of body weight (typically two quarts) at each colostral feeding.             

• Feed first within two hours of birth and again within 12 hours of birth.
  
• Several methods of feeding are acceptable.
  
• After the first two feedings, continue to feed colostrum from later milking and of lower quality for its nutritional value.

MONITORING THE PROGRAM
On a routine, periodic basis (monthly), monitor calf health:

1. Incidence of specific diseases
   
2. Age of disease onset
   
3. Response to treatment
   
4. Death rate
   
5. Growth rate

On a routine periodic basis (monthly), monitor blood of calves less than seven days old with no signs of illness or dehydration for Ig content. At a minimum, calves should have greater than 1,000 mg/dl IgG or greater than 5.5 gm/dl total protein. More optimally, IgG should exceed 2,000 mg/dl and total protein concentration should exceed 6.0 gm/dl.