Background:
India inhabits around 88 million farmers conserving and propagating the rural dairy animal population. Rearing dairy heifer calves remains the second largest annual expense after feed cost for dairy farms, accounting for about 20% of the production cost. In calf care, both feeding and health management are important to achieve healthy puberty and economic gains. Any lapse in colostrums feeding management hampers calf growth since colostrum is the only source of innate immunity and calf survival, available to newborn calves thus, remains an essential diet that is to be fed in quantity of 1.5 to 2 L within 6 hr after birth. High mortality rate of calves at farmer’s door due to lack in readily available colostrum and labor involved in feeding individual calf as per its birth weight affect the annual returns from dairy. Also, the loss of newborn calves of high genetic merit affects the ongoing genetic improvement programs nationwide. Difficult calving of the dam or lower birth weight of neonate calf do hinder in suckling the dams and pose challenges to calf health and survival due to a lack in meeting the basic initial requirement of colostrum ingestion tuned to its quantity as 10% of the birth weight within first few hrs after birth. Therefore, calf feeding becomes labor orienting, where powder colostrum as a supplement or complete diet would be an easy solution. Storage and shelf-life of surplus colostrum is enhanced which may be preserved for difficult times of feeding. Supplement diets developed for calves by salvaging available colostrum in surplus at farms are furthermore economical for reducing calf mortality rates. It is a useful technology for developing economical dairy units to help dairy farmers:
Technology Details:
It is a formulated diet (Bufcol) for calves using a powder form of colostrum fortified with essential micronutrients, which can be dissolved in lukewarm water and easily bottle-fed as directed. An agglomerated, watersoluble colostrum substitute fortified with antioxidant nutrients and antibacterial agents required for an improved rate of survival and health of neonate calves, thus saving on milk. Colostrum substitute/supplement ensures survival of newborn calves providing early immunity. It enables weaning in these calves providing sufficient nutrition supplements to sustain the healthy growth of calves footing strong productive performance.