{"id":434,"date":"2019-07-23T15:49:46","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T22:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/?p=434"},"modified":"2019-07-23T16:03:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T23:03:09","slug":"water-is-good-for-calves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/2019\/07\/23\/water-is-good-for-calves\/","title":{"rendered":"Water is good for calves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Summer is in full force. Cows need lots of water. Calves do\ntoo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A study by Wickramasinghe and colleagues published earlier\nthis year examined differences in offering calves free-choice water starting at\nday 0 vs. day 17 (the average age from the 2014 USDA National Animal Health\nMonitoring System study). The study\u2019s Holstein calves were bottle fed ad lib\nvolumes of milk at 6 quarts per day (over 3 feedings) until 14 days of age,\nthen 10 quarts per day (over 3 feedings) from 14 to 42 days, then 3.4 quarts\nper day (1 feeding) until weaning at 49 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What did they discover?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2781\/files\/2019\/07\/20180726_OSU-calf-with-water-bucket-cropped.jpg\" alt=\"preweaned dairy calf in hutch with head over black plastic bucket\" class=\"wp-image-435\" width=\"274\" height=\"466\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Once they had water available, the\nstarting-at-day-17 calves drank more water through the rest of the preweaning\nperiod.<\/li><li>Calves with water from day 0 drank more milk\nthan the group starting water at day 17.<\/li><li>Starter intake did not differ significantly\nbetween the two groups.<\/li><li>Calves with water available from day 0 were, on\naverage, taller and longer at weaning and heavier at 5 months than those who\ndidn\u2019t have water until day 17.<\/li><li>The two groups had essentially the same incidence\npattern of scours.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These results are in accord with an earlier study published\nin 1984 by Kertz et al. With a more limited milk allowance and much younger\nweaning age (28 days!), calves with free access to water ate more calf starter\nand gained more weight with no difference in incidence of scours compared to\ncalves with no water available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bottom line: Make sure your calves have water! Even for\nthe youngest ones, water will help them grow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The papers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wickramasinghe et al. Drinking water intake of newborn dairy calves and its effects on feed intake, growth performance, health status, and nutrient digestibility. <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.journalofdairyscience.org\/article\/S0022-0302(18)31058-0\/fulltext\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Journal of Dairy Science, 2019, 102:377-387<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kertz et al. Ad Libitum Water Intake by Neonatal Calves and Its Relationship to Calf Starter Intake, Weight Gain, Feces Score, and Season. <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.journalofdairyscience.org\/article\/S0022-0302(84)81660-4\/pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Journal of Dairy Science, 1984, 67:2964-2969<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summer is in full force. Cows need lots of water. Calves do too. A study by Wickramasinghe and colleagues published earlier this year examined differences in offering calves free-choice water starting at day 0 vs. day 17 (the average age from the 2014 USDA National Animal Health Monitoring System study). The study\u2019s Holstein calves were&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/2019\/07\/23\/water-is-good-for-calves\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1185806],"tags":[1310469,340],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feedsfeedingnutrition","tag-calves","tag-water"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions\/441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/dairy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}