ChewintheCud Podcast

Transition Milk; Leads to Stronger Calves

• ChewintheCud Ltd • Season 4 • Episode 15

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What if the biggest gains in calf health happen after the first feed? We explore the overlooked power of transition milk — the nutrient- and antibody-rich milkings from days two to four — and how feeding it for 10 days can tilt the odds toward healthier, faster-growing calves. With veterinary surgeon Dr Ryan Davies, we follow a spring block-calving herd in West Wales from a farmer’s observation to a structured study, complete with daily passive immunity testing and twice-daily Brix checks on pooled, pasteurised fresh cow milk.

We start with the fundamentals: dialling in colostrum quality, quantity, timing, cleanliness, and stress to hit excellent passive transfer. Then we move beyond day one. Ryan breaks down how calving density drives pool quality, why Brix can fluctuate from bulk-tank levels to true transition milk, and the practical choice every farm faces — maintain quality for the youngest calves or dilute to stretch days. The data make the case: calves receiving higher-quality transition milk grew faster to weaning, and those with low serum IgG at 24–48 hours saw a reduced mortality risk when the quality was strong. It’s a clear demonstration of local gut protection from antibodies and the extra lift from proteins, fats, growth factors, lactoferrin, and prebiotics.

We also address the risks and realities: pooling can spread pathogens, pasteurisation has limits for Johne’s and TB, and over-heating destroys the very bioactives we need. The solution is disciplined herd health plans, careful cow selection for the pool, and routine measurement. Expect straight talk on Brix targets, when to prioritise younger calves, and why prevention beats treatment when disease pressure climbs later in the block. The early signals are promising for beef finishing times and future heifer performance, with full productivity and longevity data to come.

If you’re aiming to reduce antibiotics, protect staff morale, and improve sustainability without adding complexity, this is a practical blueprint: test, pool, pasteurise, protect quality, and feed transition milk for 10 days. Subscribe, share with a fellow calf rearer, and leave a review to help more producers find these insights.

This was recorded in January 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording.

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Welcome And Dairy Tech Plans

Andrew Jones

This is the Chewinthe Cud Podcast, a podcast for the UK dairy industry, brought to you from the southwest of England and listened to around the world. Hello and welcome to Chewinthe Cud Podcast. My name is Andrew Jones, and with me as usual is Sarah Bolt. How are you doing, Sarah?

Sarah Bolt

I'm very well, thank you, Andrew. And how are things with you?

Andrew Jones

Yeah, well, maybe as people are listening to this, they might be traveling up to Dairy Tech. And um, I'm guessing we'll be up there as well.

Sarah Bolt

That's where I'm gonna be on uh when it's released.

Andrew Jones

It's the 4th of February and it's Dairy Tech Day. Um, and so maybe many of you listening to this in the car on your way up. Um I know Sarah will obviously be there with Kings Hay. Um, unless anything goes wrong, I intend to be there wandering around. And um usually if you know who I am, you can't miss me, is all I can say. Um, but if you do get to Dairy Tech, hopefully you have a good day. And if you do see us, then obviously we're both more than happy to have a word. Um so please do come and say hello.

Sarah Bolt

Please do. I'm I'm also doing um one of the panel discussions as well, Andrew.

Andrew Jones

Oh yes, I did see that. Yes, yes.

Sarah Bolt

You're gonna ask me what time, and I should have looked it up. I want to say 10.45, but you know I think that rings a bell from what I did read.

Andrew Jones

And just just tell everybody what you're talking about.

Sarah Bolt

So talking about um the um let me think, let me put this in the right the right context here, Andrew. Um helping farmers to choose the right cow monitors for their for their farm. Uh that's right that they need to consider.

Andrew Jones

All based on um uh the survey you've done fairly recently, wasn't it?

Sarah Bolt

Yeah, so all based on the the Kings Hay tried and tested cow monitors survey that we did.

Andrew Jones

I couldn't remember the tried and tested, but I I knew it was that. But anyway, enough of dairy tech. Hopefully, if you say you go, you have a good day. Um we are here today talking to our guest. In my head, I keep calling it colostrum, but while we do talk about colostrum and the important things, you know, the five Q's, etc., we're here talking about transition milk, aren't we?

Sarah Bolt

We are, which I think is uh just sort of that next step on from that best practice in colostrum management and then just taking it to the the next level, really, and and feeding that uh that transition milk whilst it's still high in all those immunoglobulins and uh and everything else that we uh we soon find out about.

Today’s Focus: Transition Milk

Andrew Jones

Well, exactly. It's a it's a really interesting conversation. By transition milk, we're talking sort of days two to four. Um, but the trial work, I think they fed up to about day 14 with the calves, uh, not milk of day 14, but two calves of day 14. But it's really interesting the benefits they found of feeding this colostrum milk because as Sarah's just alluded to, it's still full of goodies. It might not be colostrum, but it's still full of goodies. Um, so I guess let's go take a listen and see what we can learn today. This podcast has been brought to you today by ChewintheCud Limited, who offer completely independent dairy and beef nutrition, our signals advice and training along with ROM's mobility scoring. More details on these and other services available, please visit our website www.tunethecud.com or email us directly on nutrition at tune the cud.com. ChewintheCud Limited now offers first aid training from a registered first aid at work trainer and experienced minor injuries practitioner. For more details, please visit our website www.tunethecud.com or email us directly on training at tune the cud.com. Hello, I'm Andrew Jones.

Sarah Bolt

And I'm Sarah Bolt.

Andrew Jones

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Sarah Bolt

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Andrew Jones

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Sarah Bolt

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Sarah Bolt

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Meet Dr Ryan Davies

Andrew Jones

Enjoy today's episode. Right, and welcome back. And today we are going to be talking about colostrum with Dr. Ryan Davies from uh Veterinary Technical Consultant Limited. Good morning, Ryan.

Ryan Davies

Good morning, Andrew. Good morning, everyone. Morning.

Andrew Jones

How are you doing? I'm very well, thank you. And yourself? Yeah, not too bad, not too bad. Now, we had hoped to have Ryan on uh back in the late summer, early autumn last year, uh, when we sort of had a bit of a a theme running through of your transition cow management and your heifers and whatever, and we wanted to have one in there about colostrum. Um, but we had to wait because Ryan had to have a paper published in the Daria Journal Science, and that's obviously been published now, hasn't it, Ryan?

Ryan Davies

That's been published, and um the study was actually on a spring block carving herd. So uh potentially the timing now is going to be gonna be quite relevant to your listers.

Andrew Jones

Well, exactly, exactly. It ties in nicely for that anyway. So before we get on to that, uh Ryan, just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are today.

Ryan Davies

So my name is Ryan Davis. I'm a veterinary surgeon, uh, graduated from the University of Edinburgh back in 2002, many moons ago. Um I was in clinical practice for over 20 years, and then in 2023, I decided to form my own company looking at uh doing consultation work on uh more proactive preventative medicine uh planning and reducing the use of antibiotics on farm. Um that's where I am today, and I do a lot of uh consultation work with uh the Saskatoon Colostrum Company Limited, SCCL, that are a global leader in manufacturing whole bovine colostrum uh powder.

Andrew Jones

And then so what brought this, let's start at the beginning, what brought this trial around to bring on? I guess maybe just tell us a little bit over about the trial and then we'll get into a little bit more detail about it.

Why The Farm Trial Began

Ryan Davies

Yeah, so really it began um from an observation from the farmer. So it's it's uh, as I said, it's a spring uh uh carving uh block carving herd in West Wales. Uh 550 cows, pasture-based. Um and what they noticed initially was that um a lot aligning with Yoni's disease sort of controls, they were moving the dairy heifer replacements on to milk replacer on day two of life. Um and they were pooling the fresh cow milk, the unsalable milk, and feeding it to the beef calves. And what they noticed, there was a higher incidence of disease in the dairy heifers than there was in the beef animals. So the question uh came up, well, actually, what's in this fresh cow milk that may be benefiting uh these beef animals? So they changed the strategy and uh got a pasteuriser, pulled that fresh cow milk, pasteurized it, and actually fed it to the dairy heifers. And there was a remarkable reduction in disease incidence and mortality in that group. So the following season, I actually applied to the Welsh government to receive a grant to actually test this uh milk and actually see if the quality of it um could be recorded and how that influenced the health and future growth of these calves.

Andrew Jones

So that's how generally how at what stage are we talking, like two to ten days, or yeah, how many days milk are we talking?

Ryan Davies

So trans is defined as milking two to six after carving. So really on day four the cow will be producing mature milk. So really it's that fresh cow milk that uh you're not putting into the tank and that we would classify as transition milk.

Andrew Jones

Um obviously this was done on a pasture-based spring carving herd um over in West Wales, like you say. What's the difference between a pasture-based herd compared to maybe one that's housed?

Defining Transition Milk

Ryan Davies

Well, that's a really good question, Andrew. And if you talk to somebody from New Zealand, um, a pasture-based system would involve carving outdoors and leaving the calf with the cow for 24 hours and then bringing them into the rearing shed. Um in this part of the world, um, Ireland is uh predominantly pasture-based uh dairy country, but up in this part of the world, um, we would normally have a hybrid system where you're still carving them indoors, you're still uh involved in that colostrum management in the first 24 hours, and potentially the animals um don't go out until they're weaned. So it's kind of a hybrid system. So the answer to your question in the first sort of um uh early life period for the calves, potentially it's no different um in our system. We call it uh pasture-based because we are uh producing milk from grass. But potentially for the early life of the calf, it may not be that different.

Sarah Bolt

And I guess the fact that it's block calving um makes it you know sort of um easier to have all of those calves and do that research on a block carving system than perhaps it would be on an all-year-round system.

Pasture-Based Systems Explained

Ryan Davies

Yeah, I mean on an all-year-round system, you can pool transition milk and feed it in similar fashion if you've got the numbers. So it's all about the numbers, you know, you have to have sufficient volume to actually um make it a feeding strategy to pool and feed that milk. Um so it applies to larger herds as well. And I know a lot of autumn block carvers do it as well. But I think the relevance is uh there's been a lot of work in research uh recently looking at use of colostrum after the first day of life or feeding transition milk in order to improve the health and productivity of calves. And if you think about in nature, uh the calf hurtling the cow, they naturally receive this transition milk on day two, three, and four, and it's beneficial to their gut development and future growth. Obviously, in a dairy system, um, traditionally we may have taken that away from them. Um and uh they they're more susceptible to disease because of that. And a lot of your listeners may be using uh vaccines that uh provide additional protection to calves against pathogens that cause neonatal calf diarrhea. So we're talking about rotavirus, coronavirus, E. coli, and uh more recently uh Cryptosporidia. But in order for these vaccines to be fully effective, not only do you need um to ensure good transfer of antibodies into the bloodstream of the calf in that first 24-hour period, but you also need to almost drip feed the calf with these antibodies over the next, well, in research, it's shown to be beneficial up to 14, 10 to 14 days in one study, up to 21 days before the gut has developed its own immunity to uh deal with these pathogens, which occurs around 21 days of age. So the relevance of what we're talking about is it's it's actually uh quite difficult for farmers to do this on on a large scale. So if you're asking them to um store excess colostrum and feed a very small supplement on day two, three, four, five, possibly up to day 10, day 14, it's quite difficult for them to do that. Because one, you've got to have excess colostrum, two, you've got to store it in a fashion whereby um you don't allow bacteria to multiply. And three, it's actually got to be um it's gotta be facilitate, it's got to be easy, easy for them to do. So how can I say? Um the labour considerations need need to be need to be uh need to be approached.

Andrew Jones

It's gotta be practical, hasn't it? Because if it's not practical, it doesn't get done.

Ryan Davies

Yeah, practical. That's the word I'm looking for. Thank you, Andre. Um, and that's why um you you we are seeing more and more of this pooling of the transition milk because it's a group of cows, you can milk, you can pool it, you can pasteurize it, and then you can feed it to the young to the young calves. So it's a practical application of the science, really.

Andrew Jones

So taking a step back then, um obviously the farmer uh noticed this difference. Obviously, must have been one of your clients spoke to you, you've got this money. So then what happened? What was what was involved with the trial on farm to give you the results that you've now got?

Ryan Davies

So the trial involved me putting my Welly boots on, Andrew, and sending the farm every day because we know that uh the biggest predictor of future calf health is still passive immunity. So it's still um most important to achieve a good level of antibodies in the bloodstream of the calf in that first 24 hours, and we do that through good colostrum management. So I attended the farm every day in order to blood sample the calf for passive immunity, because you need to do that to know where you're starting from. Because if you've got a calf that's got high levels of passive immunity, it is already less susceptible to disease and going to have improved growth outcomes than a calf that's achieved low levels of passive immunity.

Andrew Jones

Now, um starting at calving, were they snatch calved or were they given a chance to suckle and then supplemented immediately once they were picked up at I know 12 hours? How long were the calves left with the cows to then for you to be testing for that passive immunity?

Vaccines And Post-Closure Protection

Ryan Davies

So it theoried, Andrew, and I think you know, probably a lot of your listeners would agree that you know, strict snatch carving 24-7-365, you know, let's be honest here, you need to have uh um considerable staffing uh in order for that to occur. So the reality of the situation on commercial farms is we try to snatch calves when we can, but it may be that certain hours of the night or at certain times um calves do have the opportunity to suck up. So the answer to that question is it was it that it was varied. Um but we know that the calf is unable to absorb antibodies from colostrum after about 24 hours of age. So we call that gut closure. So anytime after 24 hours, ideally as soon as possible, you can blood sample the calf to see um the concentration of antibodies in the bloodstream. So I did attended the farm every day, so that I did that in the optimal period, which is between 24 to 48 hours of age. And with that bit of data, we knew where we were starting from.

Sarah Bolt

So we're just talking about passive immunity there and colostrum management. Is it worth just touching on um just a reminder for our listeners as to what's best practice when it does come to that colostrum handling to make sure that we uh are getting the best um transfer of immunoglobulins as as possible?

Practicalities Of Pooling And Pasteurising

Ryan Davies

Yeah, that that's a that's a really good good point, Sarah, because there have been um considerable developments in the field of colostrum management, uh, even since I was in college, you know. So we're looking at the cues of colostrum there. Um it's beneficial to test the colostrum with a bricks-refractometer on farm because when you do that, a higher bricks percentage corresponds to a higher level of antibody in that colostrum. So obviously, if you're administering more uh concentrated colostrum, you are going to get more antibodies in the bloodstream of the calf. So you're testing with a bricks-re fractometer, the minimum standard is 22% bricks, which would correspond to 50 grams per liter of antibody. But if we uh achieve 25% bricks, suddenly you're pushing that number up to 75 grams per liter of antibody. So it's a 50% increase. So it may not look like much on the refractometer, um, but if you can reserve 25% bricks colostrum for the first feeding for calves, then you're administering more antibody. And once we get up to uh 30% bricks, then we're talking about 100 grams per liter of immunoglobulin G in that colostrum, and I call that rocket fuel because the calves that have really, really have the best start. So the concentration of antibody, that's that's one of the cues, the quality. And then we're looking at the quantity. I always like to take these together because what we're trying to do is we're trying to feed 300 grams of antibody in the first 12 hours. If we do that, we can achieve what we call excellent transfer of passive immunity. Now, traditionally, um, we used to have a dichometer standard for passive immunity. We used to say failure of passive transfer or successful passive transfer. And I'm sure your your your listeners will have heard that term. We've moved on from that now. There's a scale. More is better. So in order to achieve the excellent level, which would be greater than 25 grams per liter immunoglobulin G in the bloodstream, or over 6.2 uh grams per deciliter serum total proteins. Um, so a lot of your clients uh will will, when they test their cars for passive immunity, they'll be using serum total proteins as opposed to immunoglobulin G directly, because uh vets can do it quite quickly and easily on farm with a refractometer.

Sarah Bolt

So I mean, talking refractometers, they're so cheap and easy to get hold of that every dairy farm ought to have one, isn't it? They're under 35 pounds and readily available online and just gone are the days of a claustrometer that I don't know about you, um Ryan, but I've broken quite a few over the years because they're just not very hardy on farm and and everything else. So uh but my bricks refractometer's been going for many years now and uh is probably the the cheapest tool that does so much on farm.

Trial Design And Passive Immunity Testing

Ryan Davies

Yeah, and claustrometers are temperature sensitive as well. So a bricks refractometer, as long as you calibrate it, remember to calibrate it daily, then then it's a really good tool to have on farm. So, yes, the quantity then is important a lot. With the quality. So I was saying 300 grams of antibody in in the first 12 hours. As you can tell from what I've said before, if you have 30% bricks, that's 100 grams per liter. You only need three litres of that and you're home and dry. So those are those are two of the important cues. The other one is timing, you know. Um, or all of your listeners will be aware of this. Actually, getting in there within the first two hours, if you can, you're going to maximize absorption. Because remember, a calf will only absorb 25-30% of antibodies that you administer over that first 24-hour period. In the first couple of hours, it's probably 50-60%. So getting in there early is important. The other cues are squeaky clean, the cleanliness. This is uh an aspect of colostrum management that's becoming more and more um significant. We need to make sure that colostrum is uh low in bacterial counts, much as you do with your if much as you do with your bulk milk tank. If you think about it, you've got plate coolers and a bulk tank that's refrigerated in order to bring the temperature of that of that milk down to an acceptable level and keep the bacterial counts low. If the bacterial counts are too high with colostrum, shooting yourself in the foot because the calf will not absorb the antibodies. The lining of the gut gets damaged and the antibodies get get bound by the bacteria. And then you have um the last cue, which is quietly what we're talking about is biological stress. So remember, if you have to deliver a calf um and the calf comes out stressed, it's gonna absorb less antibodies. If it's particularly cold day, uh less than 10 degrees, it's it's gonna the calf is gonna absorb less antibodies. If it's particularly hot, the calf is gonna absorb less antibodies. And also remember, any kind of stress. So there was one study that showed that if the calf was fed in the presence of the dam, then it absorbed more antibodies than if you took it away. It's not interesting. Yeah. So when, you know, when when you're on farm and you see so the calf rear is sometimes getting a bit overzealous and rugby tackling the calves to to to feed them, I say, no, no, no, you know, you're gonna you're gonna reduce absorption. And the final cue then is butt by, you know, we need to test our calves. It's such an important KPI for calf health and future productivity. We need to test our calves routinely rather than waiting for there to be a problem. So I would encourage farmers along with the vet to do a few calves each month to establish how the claustrum management program is going.

Andrew Jones

Well, I was gonna say that's a lot easier now. I mean, a podcast we've done in the past obviously was with the immunity. Um, and obviously that's about testing what the clostrum transfers like in the calf, isn't it? And it's relatively easy. You can do it on farm yourself if you want to.

Ryan Davies

Yeah, and the key point there, Andrew, is you're joining the dots. So traditionally we would test for the refractometer. Oh, great, this is 25% bricks down the hatch, we're all good. But remember, the calf has to absorb those antibodies as well. And there's several factors, like I said, timing, bacterial count, stress that may influence that. So uh we had a herd once where we were we were measuring the the absorption of antibodies in the calves by by quantifying what was fed and quantifying what was in the bloodstream accurately. And it turned out the the calves weren't absorbing the antibodies, and it was purely due to um too many difficult calvings, overconditioning of the dry cows, and you know, the calves were stressed coming out and they just didn't absorb the antibodies. So I find it of colostrum management a fascinating subject. But yeah, it's important to test because the calves still have to absorb the antibodies.

Andrew Jones

So in your trial, were you tested, were they testing colostrum on farm before then you were testing the calf um to see what its transfer had been like?

Ryan Davies

So they weren't testing the uh the colostrum because the first feed of the calves they were receiving uh SCCL uh powdered colostrum.

Andrew Jones

You had a control of what were they getting?

Ryan Davies

We had a control. Um that was is that was initiated on the farm in previous years, basically a disease control measure because they had had some uh mycoplasma in the past. And also um basically to labour considerations, how can I put it? You know, it's remember that if you're harvesting colostrum, you don't have a frozen store, you're harvesting it twice a day. If you're getting calves born in the middle of the day in that sort of system, potentially there could be a delay for feeding. So he didn't have a frozen store. So we administered that first feed uh via powder colostrum um to standardize it to uh have a consideration for disease control and to make it easier for the staff.

Andrew Jones

So then what were you finding? You you took those bloods at what'd you say 24, 48 hours. What were those showing you?

The Qs Of Colostrum: Quality To Cleanliness

Ryan Davies

So that that was most uh first interesting bits of other trial was the massive variation um in the antibody level in the card. So I think we had down to four grams per liter, up to 70, over 70 grams per litre. So as I told you, the the standards would be um different these days, and we would call under 10 grams per litre antibody in the bloodstream a very poor uh level of passive uh transfer. And those animals are highly susceptible to to mortality and disease and even their growth is going to be going to be impeded. And actually, uh recent recommendations now uh suggest that these animals shouldn't really be uh bred as dairy replacements because they are not going to, even if they make it to the herd, um, they're less uh less likely to go back in calf and get on to the to the second lactation. So we had a few under 10 grams per litre, but then we had quite a few over the optimal level, which would be 25 grams per litre IgG. So we had a really wide range of um antibodies uh from that first 24-hour period, which was really good because it gave us um a broad spectrum of how these calves would uh perform when they were fed this variable quality transition milk.

Andrew Jones

That's interesting your comment though, that they're saying is it you said below 10 not to even worry about following those animals through into the milking herd because they just don't succeed. I mean, I guess that it makes me think about something, you know, the first loss is is is the best loss sort of thing rather than continue because they'll they'll struggle. And I suppose it also fits in. I'm just thinking out loud here with the the one we did on epigenetics, in terms of switching certain genes on and certain genes off. And if they're not getting those those antibiotics, antibodies to start with, they're just not gonna perform. And it just shows that you you've got to get, I mean, I I'd take a step back and say, you know, your colostrum, in this instance, they were using the powder, but in you know, your colostrum starts with your dry cow, you've got to get that right to get the colostrum quality right to then follow through. It just shows how much we are learning now in how it all connects up and actually what a difference it makes by getting it right, how it perform affects the next generation and potentially the next generation going forward.

Ryan Davies

Yeah, absolutely. And and you know, when you hear this term on farms sometimes, oh, survival of the fittest. Well, having done this study and blood sampled every single calf for pathogen immunity, I realized no, it's not survival of the fittest. You know, there are factors going on that will explain why this calf is doing a lot better than that calf and why this calf is growing better than that calf. And it all centers around colostrum management in that first 24 hours.

Sarah Bolt

That early life experience has such an impact.

Ryan Davies

Yeah, and you see, like you say, Andrew, epigenetics, we're spending a lot of money on genetics, in order to optimize those, it all starts with with colostrum.

Andrew Jones

It's amazing, isn't it? That that yeah, pe people, how do I put it? People don't um give it the time and the respect. I don't think that's the right word, to make the best uses colostrum. I mean, there are some people listening who say, well, this is this is just the basics, but I can promise you there are some people out there who aren't uh giving colostrum the time um that it's needed. And it, you know, it's a message that's been out there for a long time, and it's still, I don't think, being fully um utilized by some people out there. And and again, we're reinforcing it, but we now have the evidence that can start to back up why it's important.

Ryan Davies

Yeah, and and that's a really good point, Andrew. Some people may be maybe listening and saying, okay, I got this covered, I got this covered, but you know, introduced it as a KPI. Sample a few calves each each month. And if you're using uh serum total proteins, then you know, quite often on farms I hear, you know, oh, five and a half, that's good enough. But let's let's push the bar up a little bit. Trust me. Um, you will notice the calves um will grow better, they will perform better, um, and they're they're way less susceptible to disease. So if you can push that up to six and a half, I tell some farms, aim aim high. You know, let's get them higher. So just having a minimum standard and saying I'm over that line, um that's not really good enough anymore if we want to maximize the productivity of our dairy herds.

Andrew Jones

Well, as you say, the productivity, but just the health benefits um what you're saying is you know, that little bit of time at this stage in their life makes such a huge difference. And you know, most of their organ growth is in that uh early part, and you know, all of these things happen now, and that's when we need to concentrate because it makes the difference for the rest of their lives.

Ryan Davies

And the other thing we should talk about, um, Andrew, is you know, I was on one farm and I was discussing that the benefits of improvements he's made in colostrum management. And we were discussing, you know, all the different benefits, and we're talking about these productivity benefits, you know, growth, uh, less disease, all that sort of stuff. And I was discussing with him, and then he said, yeah, and then there's this, and he just pointed to his head. And what he was referring to was mental health. You know, if you're a calf rearer and you're going into that shed every day, and you've got calves that you're you're trying to keep alive, they're diseased, um, you're losing them. And then there's another one that was bright yesterday, it's really demoralizing, and you have to pay attention to mental health. Actually, going into a calf shed and having all the calves coming to meet you, jumping around, consuming their milk, not having disease, we're reducing antibiotic usage, sustainability, the list just goes on and on and on. So, you know, that's always considered mental health as well.

Andrew Jones

That's a fair show.

Sarah Bolt

That sustainability one's a really big one as well, isn't it? You know, the impact of not getting that colostrum right over the lifetime of that cow going into the herd, the additional carbon footprint of that poor health, poor growth, not getting back in calf, all of those impacts are huge on uh on carbon footprinting.

Ryan Davies

Well, actually, Sarah, funny you should say that because yesterday I was following up. It's probably good that we're doing this uh this this podcast now, Andrew, because the beef animals are starting to reach slaughter weight. Um now there was 92 wagu uh cross animals in the group, and these is these animals are getting slaughtered now. And we're finding, obviously, I I'm hoping that we're gonna uh statistically prove this, but we're finding that you know the animals with the with the higher levels of IgG in the bloodstream obviously grow quicker and they're gonna reach their finishing rate sooner, and that is sustainability.

Andrew Jones

You know, that that's you've probably answered the question I was gonna ask later on in the podcast, so which which is good, which is good, and we'll probably go back to it because I'm I'm thinking let's take a step. You you tested those at what do you say uh at 24, 48 hours old? You had that variation. So then what happened on farm once they'd been tested? What were then the next steps within your trial?

Ryan Davies

So the next step was the animals received that pooled pasteurized transition milk from day two to day 10.

Andrew Jones

Was there anybody knocked out? Because you say you didn't they weren't testing for colostrum, didn't you say? So it's it was everything went in there.

Ryan Davies

Yeah, so so it the the fresh cows pre-going into the bulk tank. So really what was what was in that uh what was in that feed was excess colostrum from the cows, because remember, colostrum is defined as the first milking after calving, and then transition milk, which is milkings two to six. So day four, they were they were going into the the bulk tank. Uh everything prior to that was pooled within this feed.

Andrew Jones

Okay, so then how long were the calves getting this uh pooled transition milk?

Measuring Success Beyond A Tick Box

Ryan Davies

So they were getting that till they were 10 days old. Um, and then they moved into the larger groups in the rearing shed, um, and then they were fed pasteurized whole milk then until weaning.

Andrew Jones

Right. So they did go on to whole milk afterwards. They weren't transferred then onto a powder of some kind. It was just simply using pasteurized whole milk from the farm.

Ryan Davies

Pasteurized whole milk. Um But the the the real uh point of the the paper, so everything we've discussed um up until now, we're talking about colostrum management that first 24 hours. In the research literature, that's been pretty well established. But um the purpose of the paper was to look at the the variability in the quality of this pooled excess colostrum and transition milk. And what we found was uh we test it for immunoglobulin G antibody.

Andrew Jones

So were you testing that every day, the pool every day, or how were you testing? Twice a day. Twice a day. You were testing the pool twice a day.

Ryan Davies

Yeah, so it was obviously the fresh cows are milked lasts. The feed was made up for the for the the following feed, the after. So if you milk the cows in the morning, that was the afternoon feed for the calves. So we took a sample from it every day, two, so from each batch, so twice a day. That was then sent for uh analysis of immunoglobulin G. Um, so much like you do with colostrum, testing the IETG content as a biomarker of quality, but we also tested it on farm with a bricks refractometer. Um so if we talk in bricks readings, which will be far more um sort of relevant to your readers, we found that the bricks uh variability on that feed through the carving season varied from 10 to 10.5% uh bricks, which would which was equal to what was in the bulk tank, so it was effectively whole milk, up to 15 to 16 percent bricks. So you can immediately see that some calves that received 10, 10.5% bricks, they were receiving whole milk. So they weren't actually receiving transition milk. And going back to our point about uh farmers that are investing in vaccines in the dry cows uh for pathogens that cause neonical calf diarrhea, if that's the case, then they're not, these calves will not be receiving protection from from the antibodies derived from that vaccine in that post-goat gut, sorry, post-gut closure period, which is days days two to ten.

Andrew Jones

So could you factor that back as to why there was the variation there? Was it certain days, certain age cows, um, time of the carving periods, certain weather? Did any of these were you able to tie it back to anything like that?

Feeding Protocol: Days Two To Ten

Ryan Davies

So the main uh influential factor was carving density. So we had one, you know, one night where 10 cows carved overnight. So obviously, uh, you know, you are gonna have a lot more uh colostrum in that pool, so it's gonna push the bricks up. So the quality is going to be higher, and that occurred at the beginning of the carving season. Um right at the beginning, sorry, when the maiden heifers came in, when they carved, obviously, then the quality was a little bit less at that point. Um, or when the main bulk of the cows came in, then obviously the quality went up. Um, the other factor that was influential was as the carving pattern started to stretch out and we had less dense carvings, it may have been that we only had two or three carved over a 24-hour period. And we had quite a few calves in the 10-day old group, up to 10-day old group to feed. So we then had to add whole milk in order to achieve the desired volume to feed all those calves. So we were then diluting it, you were diluting that pool and reducing the solids. So that was an influential factor as well.

Andrew Jones

So it was purely on calving density rather than age or, well, you said heifers, obviously, but rather than weather or anything like that. It was predominantly due to just density of calving.

Ryan Davies

Yeah, and that answers the question. So, you know, if if you've got a a listener now thinking, well, hang on a minute, I've milked my fresh cows, I've got this much transition milk. I've tested the bricks, it's above what my bulk tank is, so I know it's transition milk. What do I do? I've got X amount of calves up to 10 days old, up to 14 days old. Do I feed it as it is and prioritize the younger calves, but maybe they're only getting in for five, six days? Or do I uh add all milk in order to feed it for a prolonged period, which would be 10 to 14 days? And the answer to that question is you need to maintain the quality. So in that scenario, you are better off prioritizing the younger calves than adding whole milk and diluting it to a point where you're not actually getting the benefits of feeding transition milk, but feeding it for longer. So it's quite, and this is an area where uh, well, partly the reason why the paper was published, this is an area where um uh the global colostrum research community is is is prioritizing at the moment.

Sarah Bolt

So let's uh let's go back to the the research you did. What uh what did you find when when these calves were fed the transition milk for 10 days?

Variability In Pool Quality And Brix

Ryan Davies

Yeah, so so it was all down to the quality of that transition milk there. Very simple. You know, the calves um that received a higher quality transition milk grew faster to weaning um because we weighed calves that weighed them at weaning. Another interesting aspect that we found was that calves that achieved lower serum IgG in the first 24 hours, so calves that had uh a lower level of passive immunity, they actually had a reduced mortality risk when they were fed higher quality transition milk. Now, this isn't what we want. We would prefer every single calf to achieve high levels of passive immunity and as we discussed, get off to a flying start. But if we do have calves that uh slip through the net for whatever reason, this shows the power of transition milk um in uh reducing sort of uh disease risk for these animals. And and this was disease risk up to to uh up to weaning. So it'll include sort of we know that the you know diarrhoea events are often in the in the in the early neonatal period up to day 14, 21 perhaps. And then we get more cases of respiratory uh disease later on. So it included those events as well, which I thought interesting. One of the Other things that the study showed, which will uh probably be a relief to your listeners, was you know, traditionally when we have a block carving or even a block lambing system, um, you know, a lambing system, we often talk about um the disease challenge increasing over that block carving period. And people often say, oh God, yeah, towards the end, I'm getting more scour or I'm losing more calves or whatever. Um, but the study actually showed that that was statistically significant, that was correct. Animals that were born in April, May were more susceptible to mortality events than the animals born in February. And interestingly, from our study, because as you can imagine, through a carving period, the carvings were more dense at the beginning than they were at the end, um, the transition milk quality by the end was pretty much flat-lined down at being whole milk because we only had one cow carving every couple of days, and we had a lot of calves in the in the younger group. So we were diluting the milk excessively, and we were feeding the whole milk. So almost as though you've got a crossover there between disease challenge increasing and that reduced quality of transition milk.

Sarah Bolt

So the question I was going to ask Ryan was um we you were saying about how um they're getting this this um protection effectively um for those 10 days. We've already discussed that we get cut gut closure at around 24 hours. So what what do we think is actually happening in those calves to give them that protection? Is it localized immunogoblins in the gut? What what do we put it down to?

Calving Density Drives Milk Quality

Ryan Davies

That's a fantastic question, Sarah. And that is, you know, if you ask, you know, different research scientists in the field, they probably would all have a different answer to that question. But I think your point there is definitely, definitely relevant. The localized protective effect of these antibodies. And again, coming back to vaccinating, that is really, really important. Just because the antibodies aren't absorbed, we know that when they're kicking around in the gut, they are going to uh bind pathogens and provide a what we call a localized protective effect, uh, which naturally happens in adult animals through mucosal immunity, but that's not established in calves uh until 21 days of age. So there's the antibodies, but also the nutritional component. Remember that transition milk has got a higher percentage of protein and a higher percentage of fat than whole milk. So you've got, you know, the protein is obviously uh essential for growth, for tissue building processes, and the fat provides energy. So there's the new nutritional component of transition milk, which helps the calves. And obviously, if they're well nourished, their own endogenous immune system is going to kick in sooner. But also we have increased levels of bioactive proteins, things, uh, things like growth factors. So there's growth factors within colostrum, things like IgF1 and growth hormone, which stimulate the growth both systemically or overall in the calf and locally in the gut. Transitional milk has increased levels of the growth factors. And then we also have antibacterial proteins like lactoferrin. These are very, very potent in colostrum and in higher levels in transition milk. And of course, higher levels of prebiotics, complex sugar molecules that feed your healthy bacteria. And if you populate your gut with healthy bacteria, then you're going to keep out the bad bacteria. So many, many theories on why transition milk is beneficial. Um probably all of them are a factor.

Sarah Bolt

It's it's those things that we're not talking about in the industry. It's that that's perhaps new to us that we've we've perhaps heard of growth factors and and these sorts of things, but we're not regularly talking about them. And I think that that's perhaps what this research is really highlighting that actually there is something really new and fantastic to talk about on farm.

Andrew Jones

Yes, I agree. Um just to take a step back, you talked about at weaning. At what stage were you weaning? Was it weight? Was it age? What was the factor?

Ryan Davies

So the biggest factor, Andrew, was the weather in West Wales. So you can imagine the calves that were born in February, uh, they were kept in the shed a bit longer. So um they were perhaps a little bit older when they were weaning. When they were weaned, sorry. Um the animals born later on, if the weather was good, it was, you know, we tried to try to get them out um onto once-a-day milk with a milk trailer in the fields and then and then weaned onto the onto the pasture. Because obviously a pasture-based grazing herd, they sort of have the mindset of uh wean as soon as possible to encourage forage consumption.

Andrew Jones

No, that's right. And then the next thing I was going to ask you, obviously we talked about some of the benefits, and I'm sure there's some more, but what are the risks of pooled transition milk?

Prioritising Young Calves Over Dilution

Ryan Davies

Yeah, that's a really good, that's a really good point, uh Andrew, because obviously if we're pooling uh milk, then we are potentially uh increasing disease risk if uh cows contributing to that pool um have disease. So we know that um there's certain pathogens that are transmitted via colostrum transition or or whole milk, uh things like mycoplasma, which is obviously uh a disease that's uh endemic now in the UK, and you need to have consideration of that. Um the good thing about mycoplasma is it's heat susceptible. So pasteurizing will kill mycoplasma. Um that's potentially not the case for things like Ioni's disease, and something we have to consider here, and I know you do in the Southwest as well, which is TB. Um so pasteurizing at 60 degrees centigrade for uh 60 minutes um potentially will uh reduce the activity of Ioni's disease and TB, but it won't remove all uh viable organisms. You you can pasteurize and kill those uh those organisms at higher temperatures, but then you destroy the beneficial uh components within the transition milk. So it's a real it's a real balance. So if you go over 63 Celsius, you can have increased activity against those organisms, but then you're what we call denaturing the proteins, you're destroying all those beneficial proteins we talked about. So it's really, really important to have good disease control plans for things like Yoni's disease and TB to make sure that the the animals contributing to that pool are transmitting disease.

Andrew Jones

So undoubtedly don't like don't put any Yoni's positive cows into that that pool of milk.

Ryan Davies

Yeah, I mean I say you know, it's fairly common sense for your listeners. I'd say they're all um got a Yoni's control plan in place and and pretty up to speed with that, I would hope.

Sarah Bolt

So you've spoken about um sort of the differences in growth. Was there anything else that you you found um within these calves that was was different um sort of depending on that uh IgG level?

Ryan Davies

It was just it was just the reduction in mortality risk for calves with with with a low serum IgG. And I'm a bit sort of divided on this because you know I'm I'm someone that is really, really uh interested in prevention. So if I see a calf with low serum IgG, my mind says, what went wrong? What went wrong there? It's it's going back to the cues of colostrum. Is it the timing? Could we do something different? Could we test the quality? Was this animal stressed? Did we have to deliver the calf? Is it unavoidable? You know, I would like to go back and say, well, let's make sure that doesn't happen again. But um it is quite interesting that the the the power of high-quality transition milk was such that if a calf, which we know is susceptible to increased uh has increased susceptibility to illness from having low serum IgG, if a calf such as this receives high quality transition milk, then you can actually uh mitigate that risk. And as I said, that that that was a risk up to weaning, so it included uh respiratory events as well as as well as diarrhea events. Well, all health events actually. Um so yeah, that that was that was really interesting. And remember that uh out in North America they're using colostrum to actually treat diarrhoea. So they've shown that um if you have a calf with diarrhea as an adjunct to uh diarrhea therapy in conjunction with your veterinary surgeon, you can actually use colostrum to uh shorten the number of days uh that animal suffering with diarrhea and then improve its growth rate to wean it.

Sarah Bolt

I'd not come across that. That's really interesting. I mean it makes total sense.

Growth Gains And Lower Mortality

Ryan Davies

But it gives you it gives you it gives you an idea of the power of of bovine colostrum. And obviously, once again, we rather than treat carbs with with diarrhoea using colostrum, we'd rather sort of prevent as many as we can. But it's just another uh indication that gives you uh uh an idea about the the power of a colostrum or transition milk.

Andrew Jones

Definitely like Sarah, I'd not come heard of that one before, but it'd say it makes perfect sense that it's given you all the good stuff to get that guts going again, isn't it? And it improve that immunity. Now you you've touched on it a little bit with the wagyu, and as I say, that's going to be one of my questions. I mean, we're a year, uh is this no can't is this a year down the line since this was done? Two years down the line, two years down the line, must be. Uh two years down the line. Have what follow-up has there been? Have you seen with those dairy replacements, I don't know, um, a difference in the fertility as maiden heifers to then come into the herd? Because I guess they'd be coming into the herd now. Um, and then you talked about some of the beef animals. Um what if you're able to follow on, what have what results have you seen from this?

Ryan Davies

Yeah, so I've got to be careful here, Andrew, because I get a little bit excited when I see the data. And obviously, it has to be statistically significant. So you have to have the stats run on it in order to make an accurate conclusion. But uh the answer to your question is I've been following these animals uh right up to now. Um, they've been weighed regularly. Um, obviously the dairy heifers have been uh have been bred. Now I wasn't able to analyze uh that data uh too closely because they're actually run with the bull. So, you know, it's a little bit more um difficult to analyze. If you've got AI dates, you know how many serves they've had, then that's that's obviously more detailed data. Um, but I the dairy heifers are now entering the herd. They'll be calving over the next month, six weeks, and then we're gonna have lactation data from them and then fertility data. So um, and in time longevity data. So I'm gonna follow this cohort right up until um all of them have ceased their productive lives. So the dairy animals, um, yeah, I've got weights on them, but we might have to be a bit more patient with them. The beef animals, there was uh, well, out of the 251, there was 135 replacements. All the rest were beef, of which uh 92 were Wagyu crosses. So what we're doing there is we're looking at uh carcass grading, marbling score, um days to reaching finishing weight. I'm gonna accumulate that data and then run stats on it as well.

Andrew Jones

I'm guessing though that probably those majority of those beef animals were later when the quality wasn't there.

What Makes Transition Milk Protective

Ryan Davies

Um it was the idea generally, Andrew, yeah, but it it was a mix. It was a mix. Um there was a I believe there was a Wagyu bull on the place because it seemed to be Wagyu calves popping out all randomly. So you know how it is. You sort of have on paper your your carving plan, but yeah, we had we had wages throughout throughout the season. So um yeah, we'll have a we'll have a varied range there.

Andrew Jones

So so what you've got, as you say, if this is two years down the lines, um uh what are the results you're seeing on those beef animals? I mean, I'm guessing some of those must be finished by now.

Ryan Davies

I'm I'm literally I was I was speaking to the chap yesterday uh who's finishing them. So I'm just in the process of accumulating the data. So I don't want to mislead the your listeners um and give make conclusions before I got uh before I got accurator, but I but I can tell you the trends that we saw before weaning continued. So the bigger, stronger animals obviously kept growing. They've got better feed conversion efficiency, so they're utilizing the grass better, and they're gonna be finished sooner. It looks that way to me. Um but we'll probably what I would prefer is to wait until I have some productivity data from all the animals and come back and do another podcast with you.

Andrew Jones

I was I was just about to suggest that. So uh we're on the same page. You'd be more than welcome to come back in a year or two's time when you've got that data to um fill us all in and tell us where that's gone because that would be really interesting to know.

Sarah Bolt

And is this still funded, this study going forward, or was it just that original bit that was was funded?

Ryan Davies

Um it was just the the original testing was funded by uh the Welsh government by Farm and Connect, but I am receiving your support uh support from SCCL for the um continued um observation of the data for which I'm very grateful. So yeah, thank you to SCCL for that.

Sarah Bolt

I think it's really important that um that companies out there are supporting that research because it's it's that's how we find out things, and particularly when we're doing um research on a commercial farm like this, uh Ryan, that it's it's it's making sense to to other farmers when they see what's happened and all the data behind it. So I think it's uh it's a really important part of research.

Ryan Davies

Yeah, and I'm very conscious as a veterinary surgeon, you know, there's been uh obviously a push in recent recent years for improving sustainability of meat and milk production and reducing antibiotics. You know, and as a veterinary surgeon, obviously you do an annual health plan with a farmer, and quite often we're saying to the farmer, Oh, we need to reduce antibiotics, we need to reduce antibiotics, but you have to give them some tools in order to do that. So you can't just say, Well, yeah, we need to we need to pull the rug here and reduce our antibiotics in this group. We have to give them some strategies um to put in place so that the requirement for antibiotics is reduced. And that's why I've enjoyed this work so much. Um because it gives producers uh a confidence that colostrum margin and and transition milk or extended colostrum feeding for for neonatal calves in that early period um is an investment for their future productivity.

Andrew Jones

Um so this data was obviously published saying the Journal of Dairy Science um in the autumn of 2025. What's the reception of it been since it's been published?

Risks Of Pooling And Pasteurisation Limits

Ryan Davies

Um that's a good question, Andrew. I mean, it's it's it's a really, really uh high-level journal, and there are a lot of uh publications um on colostrum and uh transitional milk. So it's it's it's one of many. But personally, the feedback that I've had when I've been delivering the uh the material, um I did a uh a roadshow in the Republic of Ireland with a uh with central nutrition who make uh calf milk replacer. And it was very well received, very well received over there because the feeding strategy, it's a Ireland's a heavily pasture-based uh dairy system over there, and the feeding strategy was quite familiar to them. So actually, because it's an observational cohort study on a commercial dairy farm, it seemed to uh be more relevant. They they found it more interesting because sometimes you know, you might have a clinical trial and university research farm, and sometimes sort of the actual uh boots on the ground, you know, the farmers think, well, hang on, that's not that's not that's not like my farm. So I was able to to talk them through it and what I did, and yeah, it was well received.

Andrew Jones

Well, exactly. The the theory of it, and then it's actually making it practical to be easy on farm, isn't it? Because it's like all these things. It's it's like I, whenever I used to go and buy a tractor, it had to make sure that the dipstick or wherever was easy, because if it was behind this, that, and whatever, people just don't do it like they're supposed to. It's got to be practical and easy for people to um uh follow up with.

Ryan Davies

Yeah, and I think I think I would urge your listeners to, you know, and I've been guilty of this in the past, you know, we get a disease in the calf shed, and we're immediately thinking, what do I treat this disease with? How am I going to, you know, get it out of my shed? And really, the reality of the situation is all these pathogens we talk about, rotavirus, cryptosporidium, um, they're ubiquitous in a farm environment. They're everywhere. Okay, so they are think of them as opportunistic pathogens. They're sitting there waiting for you to mess up, and then they will cause disease. And of course, once they, it's like a uh or coming down the mountain, once they cause disease in one calf, then that animal is shedding billions more pathogens into the environment, and it then makes it more difficult for the other uh calves to remain healthy. So I would urge your your listeners to try to think about instead of oh, I've got this disease, how do I treat it? Try to think about okay, how has the door been left ajar for this organism to do its damage? And how can I close that door? And a lot of that we're talking about colostrum management in calves, we're talking about environment, sanitation, housing, nutrition, vaccination strategies. Is you know, rearing calves is not easy, um, but you have to have a um a strategy whereby you encompass all these factors to try to prevent these these pathogens because they're there and they're waiting. So, you know, I think it's important that uh we think in terms of maximizing our strategy to prevent the illness instead of treating it.

Andrew Jones

I'm uh looking at the time thinking it's uh it's time we wrap this up. So, like usual, any last words of wisdom, Ryan?

Early Trends In Beef And Heifer Outcomes

Ryan Davies

Um I just hope that you know your your listeners have have gained something from from from listening to what we've been talking about this morning. Um but again, I would I would urge them just just to not consider uh colostrum as a yes or no tick box. Has an animal had colostrum? Yes, okay, we're all good. Um there's many, many factors involved with colostrum management in that first 24 hours, and it's small margins. If you can prove a little improve a little bit here and a little bit there, you will see the benefits long term.

Andrew Jones

Sarah?

Sarah Bolt

I think what I've um taken away from it is um that I've it's actually sparked my interest to find out a bit more about these growth factors and all of those other factors that this transition milk is um providing to these calves. Um it's yeah, so it's it's really quite excited me that there's gonna there's something new that I'm going to be able to talk to to farmers about and actually try and uh help make that difference on farms. So I'm really excited.

Andrew Jones

Good. And for myself, I guess it's I guess we we talked about it in some ways, you know, this message has been out there a long time. But now with more data coming from the likes of Ryan and others, you know, it's backing up what we've been saying with hard data that these things make a difference, having the correct colostrum, what it does, and and and now obviously with the angle of sustainability by making sure that calf has a good start in life. Uh um, whether it's colostrum or the transition milk is obviously the the point of this trial, what a difference that made to it uh as well. But it just shows that getting it right in those first 24 hours or two, six hours, 24 hours, week, 14 days, whatever your measure is, getting it right then makes such a difference over the life of that animal, its whole life in terms of its growth, in terms of its productivity, in terms of is it even worth continuing with it before uh past that you know initial weaning stage, maybe in instead you should go, okay, that dairy replacement hasn't matched it, it should just go switch to beef because it's not going to have that longevity in my herd. And so ultimately, Ryan coming back maybe with some of that data in a year or two's time would be absolutely brilliant to know what knock-on effect that's had. Um, I I just think it's brilliant that we we well we we're backing up what we've been the industry has been saying for a long time with new information, with more understanding, and then we've touched on the epigenetics, we've touched on the immunity, the fact that you can test on farm easily yourself. You don't need a vet to do this for you. Um and you can, it's like everything. If you can't, if you can't quantify it, you don't know what's going on. You can you can you can measure this stuff to then see what the the effect is longer term and and you know uh it is worth making that effort within that initial period because that's when you'll make the difference. It'll be then not at 12 months old, oh she's a bit underweight, let's feed some more feed to push her up to bullying weight. You've got to make that difference right early on. Um, so no, it's it's been absolutely fantastic um to hear from you, Ryan. So thank you very much. It's much appreciated. Um, so yeah, so I guess otherwise it's a goodbye from me.

Sarah Bolt

Thank you, Ryan. It's goodbye from me.

Andrew Jones

Thank you for having me.

Ryan Davies

Goodbye from me.

Andrew Jones

Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to the Tune the Cud Podcast, a podcast for the UK dai industry brought to you from the southwest of England and listened to around the world. Now for the really boring bit, I'm afraid, the legal disclaimer. The information provided during this podcast has been prepared for general information purposes only and does not constitute advice. The information must not be relied upon for any purpose and no representation or warranty is given to its accuracy, completeness, or otherwise. Any reference to other organizations, businesses or products during this podcast are not endorsements or recommendations of Tune the Cud Limited. The views of Andrew Jones are personal and may not be the views of Tune the Cud Ltd, and the views of Sarah Bolt are personal and may not be the views of Kingshay Farming and Conservation Limited and any affiliated companies. For more information on the podcast and details of services offered by TuneTheCud Limited, visit www.tuneTheCud.com. Thank you and goodbye.