Things to know about milk from cow-calf contact systems

Now and then it is reported that udder diseases can be cured by sucking calves. Scientific studies for this are only available to a limited extent. It is undisputed that the repeated removal of germ-rich or toxin-enriched milk from the udder can have a positive effect on the healing process. However, this also means that the calves have to take over the work of the milker and - far more alarmingly - drink the pathologically altered milk. This is not in the interest of valuable offspring!

How much milk a calf takes in by suckling can only be determined indirectly by the weigh-suckle-weigh method. Sylvia Nicht (2005) determined milk quantities of between 2.5 and 5 liters per suckling bout after a defined intermediate suckling period of three to five hours, depending on the age of the calf. If there is unhindered contact with the dam, there is no question that the calves have an adequate supply: daily weight gains of more than 1000 grams are normal (Roth et al. (2009)). In the combination of mothers and foster cows, several calves suckle on one cow that in addition has usually been milked beforehand. Consequently, only limited milk is available to the calves. The extent to which this affects their physical development has not yet been studied.

That depends, of course, on the applied systems. In our studies, where each cow suckles only her own calf for more than 90 days and this also had access to its dam the whole day, the difference between the control cows (without calf contact) and the cows that nurse their calves averaged about 15 kg of milk per cow per day. The 305-day yield showed a reduction of about 1,600 kg for the cows with calf contact. This amount is not lost, of course, but essentially benefits the calf.

The number of farms that raise their calves on the mother or a wet nurse is still manageable. In most cases, the milk produced in this way is only sold directly to customers. The animal welfare organisation ProVieh e. V. has published a list of farms on its website that produce milk in this way and in some cases also market it directly.