Understanding Milk Replacer Additives

There are a lot of milk replacers and supplements on the market these days. It makes it a little challenging to navigate and decide what is best for you and what the true benefits might be. Quite frankly, it’s overwhelming. 

There are a couple general things to consider when deciding on which “add ons” you might want to consider in your calf program. The first, inclusion rate is very important. A label might say that there is something in the bag, but if it’s not at a high enough level to benefit the calf OR if you aren’t feeding it to the correct level, it’s irrelevant.

How do you know how much should be in there? How do you know if you’re feeding enough of a supplement for it to be effective? The answer isn’t so cut and dry, because as you can imagine, each level varies depending on which additive you are talking about. 

We are going to cover a couple of examples of inclusion rates, and how those can vary from different products on the market.

First, we are going to talk about oregano oil. Now, like many herbal remedies, this herb could be added in many different ways, but the two main ways are as an oil/extract and ground up. Extract is always better. It’s more concentrated and undergoes a more delicate process which helps preserve the quality and the benefits that the oils bring to the table.

Oregano has a host of great qualities, some of the most mentionable are the antibacterial and antiviral properties. Oregano can also be beneficial for fly control, fungal infections, and can help fight inflammation (1).

While antibiotics seem to have a commonplace in the calf barn, they can also contribute to antibiotic resistance and poor gut health, including the severe damage done to beneficial bacteria in the gut when administered. You can get many of the same benefits of antibiotics with oregano oil, but with none of the drawbacks! In a study done on calves, oregano oil was shown to be more effective against Salmonella, E. Coli, and Clostridium than neomycin AND was shown to reduce cryptosporidium presence! (2)

Leading perfectly into our next trifecta partner is coconut oil! Coconut oil also has a long list of benefits, but it’s worth mentioning right off that bat that coconut oil is a great carrier oil for oregano to help further enhance its benefits. 

Coconut oil is considered a medium chain fatty acid (6-12 carbon) and is an expensive oil to include, which is why you don’t often see it in calf milk replacers. Why add it?

Coconut oil also has some of the same benefits as oregano oil, having both antimicrobial and antiviral properties. While it has been less thoroughly researched in calves (outside of internally at Denkavit), there are many studies done on humans which have continually proven that the benefits far outweigh the costs. 

A study was done on a group of 200 bull calves (100 per group) in the Netherlands at Denkavit’s research facilities, testing different inclusion rates of coconut oil in milk replacer formulas. Calves were housed in a controlled research facility for 12 weeks and were fed a total of 42 kg (92.4 lbs.) of milk replacer across the study. Calves that received higher levels of coconut oil had fewer individual medical treatments compared to calves that received a lower inclusion of coconut oil (17% vs 26% respectively). In addition, animals fed 40% coconut oil inclusion had a tendency for greater body weight in the weeks subsequent to weaning. The average weight at 12 weeks was 133 ± 14.7 STD for calves in the 20% coconut oil group and 137 ± 14.9 STD for calves in the 40% coconut oil group (4). 

For the third portion of our additive trifecta, we are going to discuss tributyrate. Tributyrate is made from butyric acid. You may have heard of it before when talking about rumen fermentation, but why would we be talking about it in relation to milk replacer? Tributyrate has a host of benefits including supporting the gut microbiome, reducing inflammation, and aiding in digestion. 

The main function of tributyrate in milk replacer is to aid in digestion, especially of fat. When a calf is a newborn, their pancreas, which releases enzymes to digest fat, is not fully functioning, which means they aren’t using their diet to its full potential. 

One of the drawbacks of tributyrate is that it STINKS! That’s part of the reason you don’t see it often, because masking the smell is quite the trick. Luckily, some great technology is available to mask the smell, making it non-detectable by the calf, while still getting the benefits. 

Now, you might be wondering where you can get all of these things wrapped up in a pretty little bow. The answer? Not very many places, but we know of one!

Denkavit Performance 21/19 milk replacer contains all of these ingredients at an effective level that allows the benefits to shine. They have been doing research on the inclusion rate of each of these ingredients for the last 20 years. ONLY Denkavit has this combination of ingredients available in their Safety Package. You won’t find it anywhere else on the market. 

Decrease the number of calves that scour, the number of days they scour, and how severe the scours are. Because of this, we have also seen a decrease in subsequent respiratory cases. 

If you are curious to see what these technologies can do for your calves, send us a message and we will help you get started on a trial! Once you try it, we don’t think you’ll want to go back. 

References

Reference 1: Hammer, K. A., Carson, C. F., & Riley, T. V. (1999). Antimicrobial activity of essential oils and other plant extracts. Journal of applied microbiology, 86(6), 985-990

Reference 2: V. A. Bampidis, V. Christodoulou, P. Florou-Paneri and E. Christaki (2006). Effect of Dried Oregano Leaves Versus Neomycin in Treating Newborn Calves with Colibacillosis.. Vet. Med. A 53, 154–156

Reference 3: Gaur, S., Kuhlenschmidt, T. B., Kuhlenschmidt, M. S., & Andrade, J. E. (2018). Effect of oregano essential oil and carvacrol on Cryptosporidium parvum infectivity in HCT-8 cells. Parasitology international, 67(2), 170-175.

Reference 4: (2023). Why higher levels of coconut oil in milk replacer?. Date accessed: 08/11/2023. Website: https://denkavit.com/usa/news/why-higher-levels-of-coconut-oil-in-milk-replacer/

Reference 4: Ceh, Carrie. “Why Add Butyrate to Milk Replacer?” Denkavit, 27 Dec. 2022, denkavit.com/usa/news/why-add-butyrate-to-milk-replacer/.