Principles of milk nutrition in calves

1. There’s no point in using less digestible materials in milk replacers and thus dilute the energy. It is necessary to distinguish which materials belong to calf’s abomasum to ensure essential nutrients and which belong to rumen to help its development. Therefore, we need to distinguish between materials digested by bacteria or enzymes.
2. The combination of low doses of about 4 litres of milk replacer and the starter is always insufficient for small calves and even for larger calves if there’s wet winter.
3. Calf is physiologically adapted to digest milk. Milk should be therefore composed mainly of dairy products.

(From a lecture of MVDr. Ivo Paulík)