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246: #ColostrumIsGold - optimising colostrum management in cattle (beef & dairy), sheep and pigs
Written by AHDB
This episode focuses on the importance of good colostrum management, the effect it has on the new born animal's health and shares practical advice to help you to optimise your management protocol.
Receiving good quality colostrum, quickly enough and in the right quantity, could eliminate illnesses such as Watery Mouth in lambs, halve cases of pneumonia in calves, improve the survival rate in new-born pigs up to weaning age and beyond. It also supports the responsible use of antibiotics. But at busy times of year, we don’t always have time or resources to make sure every animal gets enough colostrum or gets it quickly enough.
The award winning Colostrum is Gold campaign, led by AHDB, collaborates with the industry to highlight the importance of colostrum in cows, sheep and pigs. Colostrum is the first milk produced by the mother following birth and is full of antibodies, energy and essential nutrients that can benefit the newborn animal.
On this podcast hosted by AHDB's Head of Animal Health & Welfare, Mandy Nevel, we are joined by speakers Emily Gascoigne and Tim Potter who are both farm vets and Pete Webster who farms both beef and dairy cattle as well as running a sheep enterprise in Cumbria. Pete is also part of the Challenge Sheep research project funded by AHDB.
Useful resources:
- Colostrum Is Gold: feeding colostrum to calves, lambs and piglets | AHDB
- Calf management
- Colostrum management for suckler calves
- Colostrum management for lambs
- Colostrum management for pigs
- Challenge Sheep research project
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