When recommending calf milk supplements, there is a valuable new product which will enable producers to not only significantly improve calf growth and lifetime dairy cow productivity but also extend the amount of milk available to feed their dairy calves.
ProviCo Enhance from ProviCo Rural is the first and only product of its kind in Australia.
It’s designed to not only fortify whole milk, but it also extends the volume of available surplus milk, eliminating the need for farmers to extract additional milk from the vat.
Although there’s nothing like mother’s milk to give young calves a good start in life, especially in the crucial first six hours after birth, the balance of fat and protein in studies show natural milk is far from optimum for calf growth and development.
As all calf raisers know, there’s never enough mother’s milk to keep young developing dairy calves on the best possible growth plane – and often not enough surplus milk to go around.
ProviCo Rural marketing manager, Alexandra Fava said extending the amount of milk available while boosting its nutrition value and the all-important protein-to-fat ratio is key to setting up a dairy calf for increased lifelong productivity.
“Simply put, Enhance builds on and balances the nutrients already in whole milk. Calves grow and develop mammary tissue better when there is more protein than fat in the diet.”
She said whole milk typically has 20% more fat than protein, however, research has shown that pre-weaned calves grow more efficiently when their liquid diet contains a higher percentage of protein than fat. ProviCo Enhance reverses that ratio with 25% protein and 10% fat.
“Getting the ratios right has a whole-of-life effect stemming from improved body structure and udder development. Calves fed whole milk with enhanced protein levels also gain more weight from birth to weaning, have better hip height, better body length and heart girth,” she said.
“Enhance lifts the protein in proportion to the fat to provide more nutrients – and ensure those nutrients are in the proper balance. Getting this right provides enormous gains over the life of the animal.”
Ms Fava said ProviCo Enhance does not replace existing nutritional products such as calf milk replacer but is a new and standalone product to use with surplus milk on calves from birth through to weaning.
“As the name suggests, Enhance both enhances and balances the nutritional value of available natural milk and pasteurised surplus milk programs.”
The deliverable benefits are:
• boosts fat and protein to encourage growth
• high protein to encourage udder development
• lifts overall dry matter intake
• easy to mix formula
ProviCo Enhance can be used to supplement actively suckling calves and is suitable for use with both Jersey and Holstein herds. For more information on Enhance and ProviCo Rural’s calf milk replacers and other nutrition supplements, visit the ProviCo website.
