The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Cattle => Topic started by: waterbuffalofarmer on August 01, 2016, 12:54:43 pm
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Here is an interesting subject for us all to talk about :D What do you think of this new milk on the market?
http://ab-neo.com/nativa-overview/ (http://ab-neo.com/nativa-overview/)
I myself have had a lot of experience with a load of different milks, My favourites have to be Shine and denkavit, for both lambs and calves; much better growth rates all round. I tried enilac and the calves just didn't do well on it at all. I was wondering about this new milk? I am sticking with shine as it is proven with my calves to be the best so far, denkavit comes second, and there is little substance left at the bottom of the bucket after mixing. The problem I had with enilac was the fact there was too much dirty looking silt at the bottom, almost greyish, plus the calves coughed more and didn't grow very fast. Lamlac is a total disaster for both parties, not good growth and very little milk content. What types of powdered milk does everyone else use currently? Also which in your opinions is best for you all to use? I am open to suggestions, do you think this milk is worth a test trial or not?
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We have Jerseys, so haven't had to use powdered calf milk for years.
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The only thing I would add is they appear to have made a milk replacer that is trying to mimic milk that the calf would get from its mother. But is it still being recommended to feed twice a day? If so I wonder if the normal milk powders cater for the fact that they are being fed twice a day rather than ad lib like it would if the calf was still on the cow. Only a musing/thinking out loud though but I wonder if the rate of feeding means that the milk powder needs to be slightly different in proteins, fats etc etc.
With regards to lambs we always use Mole Valley lamlac and have never had problems with it and the lambs do very well- they are ad lib for the first 5 weeks and weaned by 6.
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I agree with Twizzel.
Strange that after all these years of rearing calves on milk powder, then all at once a superior milk powder appears that is . . . based on milk!! Has someone magically reinvented the wheel?!!
I usually find that if something's not broken then it doesn't need fixing. I use whatever make our local agricultural merchant has. It's tried and tested and I'm happy with the results we get.