Comparisons of a communal trough with individual buckets for feeding dairy calves.

Abstract

Animal Production in Australia Vol. 15 COMPARISON OF A COMMUNAL TROUGH WITH INDIVIDUAL BUCKETS FOR FEEDING DAIRY CALVES J. A. STEWART* and J. W. TAYLOR* Use of a communal trough rather than individual buckets could reduce the time involved in calf feeding. However, there is no information on the relative performance of calves fed by the two methods and a time-saving technique would be unattractive if it resulted in poor calf performance. In this experiment 37 male or female Friesian calves, which had been individually bucket-fed for 14 days from birth, were each offered 4 litres of whole milk once daily either from individual buckets (B) or from a communal trough (T) with 40 cm trough space per calf. All calves were grazed together on perennial pasture and only separated for feeding. After accounting for initial weight additional effect of sex of calf (P > 0.4) Therefore LWG for all calves over 7 weeks as the covariate. LWG and variability of methods (Table 1). (ILW, kg) there was no significant on liveweight gain (LWG, kg). was analysed by covariance using ILW LWG were similar for both feeding Table 1 Individual regression equations and covariance corrected mean liveweight gains over 7 weeks for calves fed by communal trough or individual bucket Apart from a minor worm infestation, which was anthelmintic drench, there were no disease problems. satisfactory rate of about 600 g/day with acceptable significantly affected LWG for B calves, but not for anticipated due to the potential competition for milk greater range of ILW in B calves (CV = 14.3%) than in have contributed to this unexpected result. rectified with an Calves grew at a variability. ILW T calves. The reverse was among T calves. The T calves (CV = 9.5%) may minutes per bucket since T calves from a In this experiment the feeding of B calves took an extra 20 day f contributed by individual milk dispensing, batch feeding and washing. In a practical farm situation, more time could be saved could be fed in the paddock after they had been trained to drink trough. It is concluded that in terms of animal production, feeding of milk to calves by using a communal trough is a satisfactory method to the use of individual buckets. * Department of Agriculture, Dairy Research Institute, Ellinbank, R.M.B. 2460, Warragul, Vic. 3820 753