The relationship between colostrum quality, passive transfer of immunity and birth and weaning weight in neonatal calves

摘要

Calves are born almost agammaglobulinemic and thus need an adequate amount of good quality colostrum to avoid failure of transfer of passive immunity. The quality of colostrum is influenced by several factors such as the volume of colostrum produced, collection time, the concentration of immunoglobulins, breed, the age of dam, and mastitis events in the previous lactation. In this study, we evaluated the relationship between colostrum quality, serum total protein (TP), birth, and weaning weight of the calf.