30 January 2023

Powdered milk or full milk?

According to the well-founded arguments of various experts, the best way to ensure successful calf rearing is to switch to powdered milk after two days of colostrum.

The reasons? Because with powdered milk you deliver the best stimulus to take up roughage, because the quality of powdered milk is always constant and because it contains fewer pathogens such as Salmonella, Uberis, Para and Mycoplasma. And also because powdered milk contains the optimum amount of various forms of easily digestible fats. In other words, better for the calf, all round.

Sjaak de Kleijne, young cattle ­specialist at Agrifirm, indicated that full milk contains far more fat and energy. “That reduces the desire of calves to take up roughage, despite the objective of rearing the calf as a roughage eater. With that in mind, you should encourage calves to take up roughage as quickly as possible, in order to activate the rumen.”

“In terms of costs, powdered milk is also competitive, explained Ger van Wersch, young cattle ­specialist at FrieslandCampina. “The cost price for powdered milk is between 24 and 27 cents per litre.”

“The cost price for powdered milk is lower than for full milk”.

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