Comparison of the effects of sucking the colostrum or by giving different proportion by artificial ways in newborn calves on passive immunity

It is very important for calves to be healthy in terms of herd progression in sustainable cattle management. Adequate feeding of calves with very good quality colostrum is shown as one of the most important factors on calfs health, growing, immune system and vitality. In this study, new-born calves is used as an animal material. The animals were randomly selected from the calves which born from the breeding animals of Afyon Ballıpınar Simental Company without any gender selection and distributed to the groups in a balanced manner. It was took care that the lactation number of the mothers in the groups was balanced. A total of 27 calves, 15 females and 12 males, were used in this study. Groups was divided as follow Group 1; Calves soaking their mother up directly from her udder, Group 2: Calves that absorb colostrum up to 5% of their birth weight with feeding bottle, Group 3: Calves that suck colostrum up to 8% of their birth weight with feeding bottle. The calves should take a colostrum with the most hygienic and quick way after birth. The method or amount can be selected in respect of the infrastructure and facilities of the company. Controlling the lg level with the refractometer might give delusive results. For this reason, the most accurate way of immunoglobulin determination is ELISA. Thus, according to the results obtained from our research, it was concluded that calf losses due to colostrum failure could be minimised by the production of refractometers suitable for practical use or ready-made diagnostic kits that provide as reliable results as ELISA.