How to improve colostrum quality

[PREES]

We are in the first couple of weeks of calving and are finding that our colostrum is not quite up to scratch, has anyone any experience of tweaking their dry cow feeding over the last few weeks to improve costume quality? Our cows are in good condition and have been out on grass, they are now in at night on baled silage, some dry cow rolls and will probably add some straw shortly. They go out at day onto grass.

 

[buffalo_soldier]

Periparturient diets are all about energy, ensure they are getting enough.
If they are look at minerals.
Then it's see if there are any underlying health issues.

 

[Yale]

Assume vaccinations will put a wider spectrum of antibodies in the colostrum but that’s nothing really to do with nutrition.

 

[wr.]

Three years ago we started sprinkling a little soya on the silage for the sucklers a month before calving and that appears to have improved the quality of their colostrum.

 

[epfarms]

We are in the first couple of weeks of calving and are finding that our colostrum is not quite up to scratch, has anyone any experience of tweaking their dry cow feeding over the last few weeks to improve costume quality? Our cows are in good condition and have been out on grass, they are now in at night on baled silage, some dry cow rolls and will probably add some straw shortly. They go out at day onto grass.

How long after calving are you getting the colostrum from the cows?

 

[upnortheast]

Last year we tested every cow`s colostrum with a specific gravity floater thingy over a few months

Found a big range of quality between cows ( which had been on the same diet ) & surprisingly little correlation between the s/g reading & visual assesment . ie, the thick rich yellow stuff did not always test well

 

[More to life]

We test all out colostrum it’s surprisingly good the odd substandard one comes with higher yields at first milking. All drys get 6kg straw on the goldilocks diet not pushing them is the key.

 

[Princess Pooper]

Minerals are key. We use a good quality dry cow bolus at drying off which lasts 12 weeks. We don't bolus heifers but they get access to pre-calver Lifeline bucket. Also harvesting the colostrum preferably within 6 hours makes a big difference. We had 3 cows calve this week that we managed to get milked within 3 hours and their colostrum tested on the Brix refractometer at 25, 28 and 30 (minimum for passing muster is 22+). Most come in at 23 or 24. Diet wise we keep it simple.... hay, or if they calve before we have whipped them into the shed, they are on fairly stale grass (another reason we like the bolus doesn't matter if they calve early or are out at grass still as we are not 'feeding' the diet. No retained cleansings and we only treated 2 cows for milk fever last year.