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Milk Replacers and Calf Starters: Complete Calf Feeding Guide
Proper calf feeding during the pre-weaning period is essential for ensuring healthy growth, early rumen development, and future productivity. Milk replacers are commonly used as economical alternatives to whole milk, while calf starters provide the nutrients needed to stimulate rumen development and support the transition from a liquid to a solid diet. Understanding the composition, quality requirements, and feeding schedules of milk replacers and calf starters is important for successful calf-rearing programs.
Milk replacers or milk substitutes consist basically of skim milk powder and lard or vegetable fat, although a proportion of buttermilk powder and whey powder is often included. A small proportion of glucose, soybean flour, and cereal flour may also be added together with certain minerals and vitamins. If a good-quality milk replacer is used, there is no need for feeding any whole milk after colostrum feeding.
Calf feeding schedule with limited whole milk and calf starter:
| Age | Colostrum/Whole Milk (kg) | Skim Milk (kg) | Hay/Green Fodder | Calf Starter (kg) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1–5 days | 3.00 | – | Ad lib. | – |
| 6–7 days | 2.75 | – | Ad lib. | – |
| 2nd week | 3.25 | – | Ad lib. | – |
| 3rd week | 2.75 | 1.00 | Ad lib. | 0.10 |
| 4th week | 1.75 | 2.00 | Ad lib. | 0.20 |
| 5th week | 1.00 | 3.00 | Ad lib. | 0.30 |
| 6th week | 0.50 | 3.50 | Ad lib. | 0.50 |
| 7th and 8th weeks | – | 3.50 | Ad lib. | 1.00 |
| 9th to 12th weeks | – | 2.50 | Ad lib. | 1.25 |
| 13th to 16th weeks (4th month of age) | – | 0.50 | Ad lib. | 1.50 |
| 17th to 20th weeks (5th month of age) | – | – | Ad lib. | 1.75 |
| 21st to 24th weeks (6th month of age) | – | – | Ad lib. | 2.00 |
Various calf-feeding programs have been developed to reduce the use of whole milk while maintaining adequate nutrition for growth and development. These programs generally combine whole milk, skim milk, milk replacers, calf starters, and roughages in different proportions according to the age and nutritional requirements of the calf.
Calf feeding schedule with limited whole milk, skim milk, and molasses:
| Age (Days) | Colostrum (% of Body Weight) | Whole Milk (% of Body Weight) | Skim Milk (% of Body Weight) | Calf Starter (g) | Roughage | Molasses (g) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0–4 | 10 | – | – | – | – | – |
| 5–12 | – | 5 | 5 | To be introduced | Ad lib. | 30 |
| 13–20 | – | 2.5 | 7.5 | 50–100 | Ad lib. | 50 |
| 21–30 | – | – | 8.3 | 250 | Ad lib. | 70 |
| 31–40 | – | – | 8.3 | 500 | Ad lib. | 85 |
| 41–60 | – | – | 6.6 | 750 | Ad lib. | 110–150 |
| 61–90 | – | – | 5 | 800 | Ad lib. | 170–180 |
| 91–120 | – | – | – | 1000 | Ad lib. | 200–250 |
General Characteristics of Good-Quality Milk Replacers
- Contains a minimum of 50 percent spray-dried skim milk powder.
- Contains 10–15 percent stabilized high-quality fat, mainly lard homogenized into skim milk or buttermilk before spray drying.
- Supplemented with vitamins A, E, and B12.
- Incorporated with antibiotic feed additives.
- Should contain 22–25 percent good-quality protein.
- Should not contain starch or fiber.
- Should be readily dispersible in water.
- Should flow well as a powder for automatic feeding equipment.
- Milk replacer should be mixed in the correct proportion with warm water, since dilutions that are too weak or too strong tend to create digestive problems. The optimum ratio of milk replacer (kg) to water (L) is 1:8.
- A good milk replacer composition should contain 50 parts spray-dried skim milk powder, 10 parts dried whey, and 40 parts non-milk ingredients.
A good milk replacer suggested by Ohio workers is as follows:
| Ingredient | Amount (kg) |
|---|---|
| Dried Skim Milk | 70 |
| Dried Whey | 18 |
| Lecithin | 2 |
| Animal Fat | 10 |
| Dicalcium Phosphate | 1.7 |
| Copper Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, and Antibiotic | Traces |
Partial Milk Replacers
The difference between a partial milk replacer and a milk replacer is that partial milk replacers do not contain high proportions of milk or skim milk powder.
An example of a partial milk replacer is:
| Ingredient | Parts |
|---|---|
| Wheat | 10 |
| Fish Meal | 12 |
| Linseed Meal | 40 |
| Milk | 23 |
| Coconut Oil | 10 |
| Butyric Acid | 0.3 |
| Citric Acid | 1.5 |
| Mineral Mixture | 3.0 |
| Antibiotic | 0.2 |
| Total | 100 |
Calf Starters
They are the first concentrate mixtures fed to calves. Calves start eating small amounts of dry starter from the 2nd week of life.
To train calves to eat starter mix, the following procedure may be useful:
- The calf starter can be introduced in the milk-feeding pail at the end of feeding so that the calf will lick it dry, and the quantity can be increased gradually.
- Alternatively, a small amount of concentrate can be rubbed on the tongue and lips of the calf, which will encourage it to eat.
- A calf starter should be highly palatable. It should have high energy (75% TDN) and contain 14–16 percent digestible crude protein.
- Calf starter may be fed on a free-choice basis until the calf starts consuming about 1–1.5 kg of starter mix per day, after which the amount may be restricted. Generally, calves reach this stage by 2½ to 3 months of age. Milk feeding can be discontinued as early as when the calf is consuming 0.4–0.5 kg of concentrate per day, depending on the breed.
A great variety of calf starters is available. The ingredients of calf starters may be altered according to feed availability and cost:
| Ingredients | Parts |
|---|---|
| Maize | 42 |
| Groundnut Cake (GNC) | 35 |
| Wheat Bran or Rice Bran | 10 |
| Fish Meal | 10 |
| Mineral Mixture | 2 |
| Salt | 1 |
| Total | 100 |
