Feeding calf starter after birth can promote calf performance for increasing quality of cow replacement stock

Abstract

Newborn calve has an undeveloped rumen and tend to easily diarrhea caused by E. coli from environment and cause death. Feeding calf starter (CS) content probiotic after birth can promote rumen development and suppress E. coli. This experiment aimed to evaluate the effect of different feeding calf starter to FH calf performance. Different test (t-test) was used in this experiment. The treatments were the use of different calf starter: 1. Calf starter from farmer (CS-F), 2. Calf starter content fermented waste cabbage (CS-L). The materials were CS content waste cabbage fermented, CS from farmer and 30 Frisian Holstein calves with aged 7-14 days and 41.14 ± 3.28 kg initial body weight. Feeding calf starter twice per day after giving milk, forage and water given ad libitum. The parameters measured were feed intake, feces consistency and daily gain. The data were analyzed with t- test. The result indicated that there were no different (P>0.05) on feed intake and average daily gain, but CS content fermented waste cabbage produced feces consistency better than (P<0.05) CS from farmer. Feeding calf starter with added fermented waste cabbage produce good calve performance. Key words: calf starter, fermented cabbage waste, feed intake, feces consistency and body weight gain