YOUNGSTOCK ▶▶▶
Give newborn calves enough extra water
Water is an essential nutrient for livestock animals and it is recommended that free drinking water is offered right after the calf is born. Supplying water right from the start can have a positive effect on milk intake and growth, new US research shows.
BY DR RANGA APPUHAMY JAYASOORIYA, DAIRY SCIENTIST AT IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY, USA
D
Water contrib- utes to about 80% of the body weight of newborn Hol- stein heifer calves.
espite the fact that water is such an essential nutrient, water requirements of livestock are often overlooked compared with the requirements of other nutrients. And this is often the case in dairy
calves. Considering that water contributes to about 80% of the bodyweight of newborn Holstein heifer calves and the fact that the body water content dramatically decreases as calves grow and deposit more fat, displacing body water, you-can imagine that water intake is very important. More- over, neonatal calves lose a great volume of water due to diarrhoea, which is seemingly inevitable in many dairy operations. Body water losses further increase during warm weather.
Farmers are hesitant to supply water Calves meet their water requirement via free drinking water (hereafter called drinking water), moisture from feed, and metabolic water. Whereas mature cows receive most water via drinking water, most calves receive the majority of their water via milk or milk replacer. Therefore, the drinking water requirement of calves appears to be insignificant when sepa- rated from liquid feed intake. The USDA’s National Animal Health Monitoring System study in 2014 (USDA, 2016) demonstrated that dairy producers wait for, on average, 17 days to first offer drinking water to newborn calves. Produc- ers also seem to be hesitant to offer water to newborn calves, assuming it would cause diarrhoea. Overall, there seems to be a lack of scientific evidence on drinking water intake of newborn calves and its effect on their performance. In addi- tion, the majority of producers seem to assume that neonatal calves receive adequate amounts of water from milk or milk replacer to fulfil the total water requirement of the body. A research team from Iowa State University in the US therefore looked at this topic in more detail.
30 calves in the study A study was set up to determine the free water intake (FWI) of newborn calves, and to investigate the effect of first offer- ing drinking water from birth versus 17 days later on milk and starter intake, growth performance, health status, and
6 ▶DAIRY GLOBAL | Volume 6, No. 2, 2019
PHOTO: TON KASTERMANS
PHOTO: HENK RISWICK
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