Methods of feeding colostrum and their effect on the passive immunity

Poborská, Anna; Zábranský, Luboš; Šoch, Miloslav; Havrdová, Nikola; Illek, Josef; Kernerová, Naděžda

doi:10.2754/avb202190010021

Acta Veterinaria > Archive > 2021, Vol. 90 > Issue 1 > Methods of feeding colostrum and their…

Acta Vet. Brno 2021, 90: 21-25

https://doi.org/10.2754/avb202190010021

Methods of feeding colostrum and their effect on the passive immunity

Anna Poborská¹, Luboš Zábranský¹, Miloslav Šoch¹, Nikola Havrdová¹, Josef Illek², Naděžda Kernerová¹

¹University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Faculty of Agriculture, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
²University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Large Animal Clinical Laboratory, Brno, Czech Republic

Received January 20, 2020
Accepted February 24, 2021

Passive transport of colostral immunoglobulins is essential for calves to maintain optimal health. There are many factors that influence the absorption of immunoglobulins such as colostrum density, timing of ingestion, volume of colostrum but also the method of feeding. This study compares two manners of feeding calves – the esophageal tube feeder (n = 97) and the nipple bottle (n = 97), and their effect on the number of all absorbed immunoglobulins (IgG, IgM, IgA, IgD, and IgE). It was statistically proven that absorption of immunoglobulins is better with the nipple bottle (P < 0.0001). The feeding of calves through a nipple bottle is more beneficial because the content of total protein is the higher than by the feeding through an esophageal tube feeder.

Keywords

Calves, total protein, nipple bottle, esophageal tube feeder.

Funding

The authors thank Vojtěch Kolář and Veronika Hadačová for the processing of statistical analysis. The research was funded by grant NAZV QK1910438, NAZV QJ12101144, NAZV QJ1530058, and GAJU 019/2016/Z.