Bovine Colostrum and Neonate Immunity - a Review

Raising healthy calves with minimum mortality is crucial in successful dairying. The calf has essentially no immune protection at birth because maternal immunoglobulins cannot cross the placenta, and the calf's own immune system is functionally immature. Reducing health problems in calves can be achieved through feeding colostrum. The calf's acquisition of colostral immunoglobulins through absorption in the intestine is called passive transfer or passive immunity. In addition to disease protection, colostrum also provides the neonatal calf with high quality nutrition and many growth factors and hormones that may be beneficial for initiating function and growth of the digestive tract. "Failure of passive transfer" (FPT) occurs when the acceptable levels of IgG or total protein are not achieved by 24-48 hrs after birth. Timely and adequate colostrum intake is the single most important management factor affecting morbidity and mortality in preweaned calves. The two most important factors affecting the amount of IgG absorbed from colostrum are the time of first feeding and the amount of IgG consumed. In our experiment we found that the IgG > 10g/L was optimal for survival of buffalo neonatal.