Calf Milk Replacer Pellets at Wicklow Calf Company
Calves are the future of the herd. By investing in your calves and ensuring they are healthy, have good growth rates and have strong immune systems, you are maximising future reproductive performance and maximising the lifetime milk production of your herd.
During the first three to four weeks of life, a baby calf only has its true stomach (abomasum) functioning. Its digestion depends upon the enzymes in the abomasum, not microorganisms of the rumen.
Obviously, the optimal diet for the young calf is that provided by nature – cow’s milk. Unique to milk are special proteins such as casein and lactalbumin along with the carbohydrate lactose. Typical dried cow’s milk is approximately 27% protein and 27% fat, with the remainder lactose and minerals. Replacers will optimize the amount of protein, fat, lactose, and ash to promote healthy growth. To evaluate the cost of a calf milk replacer versus the value of salable whole milk it replaces, compare the cost of a 50-pound bag of milk replacer with 450# (4.5 cwt) of milk.
Provide a good quality calf mineral from the first few days of life, fed with calf milk replacer pellets. Contact us today for assistance in planning a feeding program to meet your specific needs.
Pellets is designed to be fed to dairy and/or beef calves. It is formulated to supply the high quality protein, energy, vitamins, and minerals needed to supplement the nutrients provided by milk or milk replacer.
Calf starter (calf pellets) is essential, to trigger rumen development and ensure the rumen microbial population begins to grow and papillae (in the lining of the rumen) begin to develop. A good quality calf starter should be fed ad-lib from around the first 3-4 days of life and mineralisation of the diet should begin at the same time with a good quality calf mineral added in small quantities to the solid diet. Water is also essential, and should be provided ad-lib from birth. Water goes straight into the rumen and provides a moist environment for the microbes.
There is a myth that if you feed too much water to calves they will drink too much and become ill; this is not true. If a calf is taught by the farmer that water is the same as milk (by feeding twice daily in buckets just as milk is fed), the calf will want to drink a lot because she is hungry and she thinks the water is food. If she is left with a bucket in her pen from birth, she will instinctively know it is water and drink only when she is thirsty.
Wicklow Calf Company has designed our milk replacers to the highest quality. Our milk is manufactured by Denkavit, one of the largest manufacturers of calf milk in the world who rear over 650,000 calves annually. In a market flooded with different milk replacers we are the only company that uses all our products. If it’s not good enough for us it certainly isn’t good enough for you to use. Only excellent raw materials are used to ensure consistency in quality and provide calves with prebiotics, probiotics, and accurately defined levels of fatty acids and essential oils for optimal health and safety.