Tube feeding – good or bad?

In a number of articles published recently, Lucy Waldron claims that “tube feeding should be avoided if at all possible as it can easily damage the young underdeveloped rumen and may impact the development and function” of this organ.  

She goes on to claim “at post mortem the calves’ tube feed at birth are easily identified” and she illustrates that with a picture showing “a brown, foul smelling milk sludge in the rumen”. 

Is this really true? I have done thousands of post mortems on newborn calves and have never seen this as a consistent sign. Sure, I have seen rumens full of brown muddy water – but that is what it is, ingestion of dirty water. 

So what is real and what is fiction? The bottom line is that newborn calves need to drink a minimum of 4L of good quality colostrum within 6-8 hours after birth in order to get a good energy and immunoglobulin intake for protection from environmental challenges and for disease protection. 

The research is clear: the higher the colostrum intake in this critical period the better this calf will thrive. 

A volume less then 4L during this critical window will impact greatly on the health and welfare of the young calf. In fact, a calf with poor colostrum intake is nine times more likely to get sick, get scours or die.

In nature this failure of good colostrum intake is very real: only about 45% of newborns will consume enough colostrum in this critical period leaving some 55% vulnerable to disease or death. 

Why does nature get it so wrong? 

Let’s look at some reasons why a good colostrum intake is not achieved. These are:

Calf factors including hypothermia, slow birth, difficult birth, swollen face and tongue (try sucking with that), slow to stand up or separated from its mother.

Cow factors that would prevent a calf from drinking from its mother include mastitis, swollen or blocked teats, low udders or downer cows. 

And, lastly, the timing of the intake of this colostrum is critical: the earlier the better.

How long does it take to suck up 2L (how long would it take you to suck 2L of milk through a straw)?  So let’s give nature and the calf a hand and be assured that the right amount of colostrum is fed and on time. 

It would be nice, as Dr Waldron suggests, to spend “10-15 minutes per calf” teaching them how to suck. Try telling that to a farmer with 20-30 new arrivals per day!

Large, commercial farms with many staff know how valuable it is to tube feed every calf in the paddock or on arrival at the calf barn. Valuable pedigree calves are routinely tube fed the first feed of colostrums.

It is fair to say that 80-90% of farmers worldwide are routinely not leaving it to nature; the tube feed at least 1-4L in that early period. 

The good news is that the issues Dr Waldron writes about are rare and can be avoided.

Here are some facts on esophageal tube feeding. 

Firstly the tube gets nowhere near the rumen (it only goes halfway down the esophagus) so by itself cannot damage the rumen. 

Yes it does interfere with the closure of the esophageal groove so milk will flow into the rumen.  Research by Chapman and Butler (Can J Vet 1986) showed by x-ray that colostrum via a tube feeder will transfer from the rumen to the abomasum within a short time and all will be gone from the rumen within three hours. At this stage, the rumen is very small (about the size of a cup) and is sterile.

Most importantly you are only doing this once. The best part is that a calf with a good initial feed of colostrum will be strong and will easily want to suckle from a teat at the next feed 6-8 hours later. 

Yes, tube feeding should be done with care and with some simple rules: have more than one feeder; make sure it has no sharp edges; lubricate it well with spit, Vaseline, cooking oil or other lubricant; clean often but do not soak in irritant detergents like Dettol (rinse well before use); take your time, it is not a race; monitor staff to ensure it is done well. 

Tube feeding is the greatest and simplest management tool available to improve the health, welfare and survival of this valuable member of the herd. Have faith; it works, is safe and saves a lot of calves.