Best way of raising healthy calves to ensure a happy cow and calves to grow in to good cows and breeding bulls is allowing natural feeding of the calves on mother cow. Saliva from a calf is the best and natural sanitizing fluid for cow teats and prevents the plug at the end of teat from going in to milk vat. Doing this can make the difference between clean milk and an e.coli bacteria count of 20,000. Thus calf also helps in supply of cleaner milk .
Is it practical to combine natural feeding of calves and machine milking operation for a cow?
It is indeed possible to keep cow and calf together combined conventional milking schedules. You could check the following references:
Flower, F.C., Weary, D.M., 2003. The effects of early separation on the dairy cow and calf. Anim. Welf. 12, 339-348.
Froberg, S., Lidfors, L., 2009. Behaviour of dairy calves suckling the dam in a barn with automatic milking or being fed milk substitute from an automatic feeder in a group pen. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 117, 150-158.
Froberg, S., Lidfors, L., Svennersten-Sjaunja, K., Olsson, I., 2011. Performance of free suckling dairy calves in an automatic milking system and their behaviour at weaning. Acta Agric. Scand. Sect. A-Anim. Sci. 61, 145-156.
Krohn, C.C., 2001. Effects of different suckling systems on milk production, udder health, reproduction, calf growth and some behavioural aspects in high producing dairy cows - a review. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 72, 271-280.
Roth, B.A., Barth, K., Gygax, L., Hillmann, E., 2009. Influence of artificial vs. mother-bonded rearing on sucking behaviour, health and weight gain in calves. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 119, 143-150.
Hope You find this helpful,
Kind regards Julie Føske Johnsen
PhD student
Norwegian veterinary Institute
The cow-calf project
www.vetinst.no/cow-calf
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