Effect of Three Colostrum Diets on Passive Transfer of Immunity and Preweaning Health in Calves on a California Dairy following Colostrum Management Training

Table 1

Comparison of baseline characteristics among 3 treatments in a randomized field trial comparing the effects of feeding first-milking pooled colostrum alone or first-milking pooled colostrum followed by either a colostrum-derived replacer or second-milking pooled colostrum to newborn Holstein and Jersey calves.

Characteristic	Treatment 1*	Treatment 2*	Treatment 3*	𝑃 value
	𝑁=58	𝑁=54	𝑁=54
Sex: 𝑁 (%)				0.167^†
Female	23 (39.7)	27 (50.0)	31 (57.4)
Male	35 (60.3)	27 (50.0)	23 (42.6)
Breed: 𝑁 (%)				0.544^†
Holstein	52 (89.7)	45 (83.3)	45 (83.3)
Jersey	6 (10.3)	9 (16.7)	9 (16.7)
Time to separation from dam: 𝑁 (%)				0.912^†
<1 hour	41 (70.7)	42 (77.8)	39 (72.2)
1–6 hours	15 (25.9)	11 (20.4)	14 (25.9)
6–9 hours	2 (3.4)	1 (1.9)	1 (1.9)
Time to colostrum feeding: 𝑁 (%)				0.764^†
<1 hour	4 (6.9)	3 (5.6)	4 (7.4)
1–6 hours	44 (75.9)	37 (68.5)	41 (75.9)
6–9 hours	10 (17.2)	14 (25.9)	9 (16.7)
Birth weight (kg):				0.750§
mean (SE‡)	39.02 (0.86)	38.68 (1.05)	37.99 (1.03)
Precolostrum serum total protein (g/dL):				0.689§
mean (SE)	4.44 (0.04)	4.49 (0.04)	4.45 (0.06)
Precolostrum serum IgG (g/L):				0.715§
mean (SE)	0.40 (0.05)	0.45 (0.06)	0.46 (0.06)
First-milking colostrum IgG (g/L):				0.505§
mean (SE)	65.0 (2.16)	67.0 (2.01)	63.4 (2.35)
Second-milking colostrum IgG (g/L):				—
mean (SE)	—	—	25.8 (1.81)
Total IgG fed‖ (g):				<0.001§
mean (SE)	255.9^a (8.87)	222.1^b (4.84)	172.2^c (4.75)

∗Treatment 1: 4L 1st-milking pooled colostrum, treatment 2: 2L 1st-milking pooled colostrum followed by 2L colostrum-derived replacer, and treatment 3: 2L 1st-milking pooled colostrum followed by 2L 2nd-milking pooled colostrum.
^†Pearson chi-square or Fischer’s exact test with 5% level of significance.
‡SE: standard error.
§One-way ANOVA using the Tukey multiple comparison procedure with 5% level of significance. Means without a common superscript are significantly different.
‖Total IgG fed for treatment 2 estimated assuming 100 g IgG in colostrum-derived replacer.