Supplementing Milk with Milk Replacer Powder?

Supplementing Milk with Milk Replacer Powder?

Adapted by Noelia Silva-del-Río, UCCE Tulare

Feeding your calves cow's milk supplemented with milk replacer powder may have some side effects. Adding milk replacer powder to milk increases the caloric content of the final milk and makes it more concentrated (hypertonic). Changing the isotonic properties of milk from 300 miliosmol per liter (mOsm/L) to hypertonic, more than 600 mOsm/L, will increase the calves' stomach emptying rate. When this happens, less milk is digested in the stomach and more is available in the small intestine. Gut microbes such as clostridium can feed on the glucose from milk that is reaching the intestine. Clostridium growth could lead to digestive disorders and enterotoxemias. It is not recommended to feed fluids with an osmolality higher than 600 mOsm/kg unless fresh water is always available to the calves. Research data indicates that fluids with concentrations as high as 1210 mOsm/kg have been fed as a result of mixing errors, concentrating powder, electrolyte powder in milk replacer, and colostrum supplemented with mixed colostrum. If you are implementing any of these practices, make sure that water is available at all times. Be especially careful during hot months when calves need to drink more water. Instead of increasing the concentration of the milk/milk replacer, consider increasing feeding volume by introducing an additional feeding or increasing the volume fed at each feeding.