As a follow up to last weeks blog, discussing the management of calves born through more difficult births is the topic for the week.  Generally calves that have a prolonged or hard birth tend to be acidotic.  These calves are less efficient at absorbing nutrients from  their mothers, thus leaving weaker and frail.  Therefore, it may be necessary to feed these calves with a bottle or through a tube.  When feeding these calves make sure a high quality colostrum supplement is used.  Calves should be fed 5-6% of their body weight within the first 6 hours after birth and again when the calf is 12 hours old.

Thus for an 80 lb. calf, approximately 2 quarts of colostrum would be fed per feeding.  And by extension a 100 lb. calf would recieve 2.5 quarts per feeding.