Effect of mother contact and voluntary colostrum suckling on growth, health and stress of neonatal buffalo calves

Abstract

The aim of present study was to investigate the effect of full mother contact and voluntary colostrum suckling on the health, stress and growth performance of neonatal Murrah buffalo calves. For this, two experiments (exp.) were conducted involving exp.1, 24 mother-calf pairs were divided into three equal groups (eight pairs/each group). In no mother contact (NC) group, weaning was allowed immediately after birth. In restricted mother contact (RC) group, restricted contact was allowed twice daily. In fence-line mother contact (FC) group, calves were in full-time mother contact from birth to day (d) 5 and allowed voluntary colostrum suckling and thereafter fence-line contact. In exp.2, another 24 mother-calf pairs were selected and divided into two groups (12 pairs in each group), with the same conditions as the RC and FC groups in exp.1. Average daily gain, total protein and total Ig concentrations differed between different groups in both experiments. Cortisol levels were lower in FC followed by RC and lowest in NC calves, and similar results were observed in exp.2. It was concluded that the provision of full mother contact along with free choice colostrum suckling from birth to 5 days followed by fenceline mother contact and twice daily suckling at milking time abated the separation and weaning stress and remarkably improved the growth, immune status and health of Murrah buffalo calves as compared to the calves which were allowed only limited contact twice daily or the calves which were weaned at birth.