Episode 303 - Improving Calf Health: What Total Serum Protein Levels Are Telling Us - UMN Extension's The Moos Room

00;00;11;03 - 00;00;38;09
Brad
And welcome to The Moos Room, Brad. Again today. Been traveling a lot. Gone to some meetings, dairy science meetings, animal science meetings. And. Kind of wanted to talk a little bit about some of the interesting things that. I've heard about or talked to other people about, and something that's kind of been on my mind lately, and that's talking about total serum protein in carbs.

00;00;38;16 - 00;01;05;19
Brad
People have probably heard some of my rants before about total serum proteins, and we did some stuff here in Morris about feeding calves and looking at the total serum proteins, where we found higher serum proteins in calves raised on the cow versus when we fed them colostrum. That's a older podcast and obviously still debatable about among everybody with all of this.

00;01;05;19 - 00;01;39;21
Brad
But I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about some of the serum protein stuff and research that people have found, and some kind of interesting stuff I saw at the dairy science meetings maybe three weeks ago, in Louisville, Kentucky. So I think one of the things obviously measuring serum total protein in calves is very important, particularly in the first few days of life, because it can be a good indicator of success, full passive transfer of immunity from colostrum, obviously.

00;01;39;24 - 00;02;13;29
Brad
Why should we measure it? So this serum total protein is an indirect measure of the amount of ECGs the calf has absorbed from colostrum. So it's a pretty good indicator of colostrum management or colostrum quality from dry cows because calves are born without significant immunity and they rely a lot on colostrum to acquire their protective antibodies. And if passive transfer fails, obviously the calf is at much higher risk for disease.

00;02;13;29 - 00;02;40;23
Brad
Poor growth, mortality, increase death rates, you name it. Obviously, it can be difficult to measure. You know, not every farm is maybe set up to do that. How do you do it? How do you take a blood sample from a calf trying to figure all of that out to deal with serum total proteins can be daunting and challenging, but let's talk about some of the research that was presented at the dairy science meetings.

00;02;40;25 - 00;03;05;00
Brad
And then we will talk about some other things and some workshops that we have coming up that at least here in the Midwest to deal with that. So one of the research studies that sort of sparked my interest was a study that was done by Dave Casper at out of Illinois, and he looked at Holstein sale, barn calves and evaluated them for total serum protein concentration.

00;03;05;00 - 00;03;30;21
Brad
So he has a calf ranch where he raises calves and does research studies with calves. Obviously looking at a lot of the male calves, most of these male dairy calves are routinely sold off of farms and go to calf ranches or calf raisers, and then feedlots for milk production. So dairy farmers may not always care, I should say, about serum total proteins in in their bull calves because they're just going to leave right away.

00;03;30;21 - 00;04;01;06
Brad
Anyways. In this study they measured total serum protein across 1100 Holstein bull calves from the last five years of studies that that Dave did in Illinois. They found that the mean total serum protein was 5.36, and it ranged from 2.8 to 8.0. 5.3 is not bad if you look at dairy calf and Heifer Association gold standards, and we'll talk about this at the end.

00;04;01;06 - 00;04;24;18
Brad
But I think that mostly the gold standards now, or they want you to be 5.5 or higher or some even closer to six to have adequate antibodies. But some of the calves were good, some of the calves not so good. 2.8 that's pretty low. One thing that they noticed in their study is that the total serum proteins have increased across the year.

00;04;24;18 - 00;05;03;26
Brad
So they started collecting this data in 2020 through 2024. And they've been gradually increasing. So in 2020 4.9 was the average serum total protein, and in 2024 it was 5.58 which was the highest. So probably dairy producers are improving their colostrum management in these male calves. So that's a good sign. So the recommendations are to have 40% of the calves are in excellent, 30% good, 20% fair and 10% poor as far as failure of passive transfer.

00;05;03;26 - 00;05;36;25
Brad
And those all come from dairy calf and heifer association. And what sort of cut points people want to use for developing total serum protein. The study found that only 14.4% of male calves were in the excellent category. So that's pretty low. That's pretty low. So most of those calves that were in the excellent category were or most majority of the calves were below 6.2, roughly below 6.1.

00;05;36;25 - 00;05;59;15
Brad
There was a fair amount of calves almost a majority of the calves in the poor quality, 36% of the calves were less than five. So really, I think that kind of gives us an indication that although maybe dairy producers and farmers are improving on their colostrum program, it's far from perfect. So there is a large percentage of calves in poor and fair.

00;05;59;22 - 00;06;36;12
Brad
So which means basically 5.5 roughly and below this was close to 70% of the calves were below 5.5. And that can be certainly alarming. However, they did notice that the percentage of poor status calves has been declining across time. In 2020, they had 60% in the poor category, which is really alarming now to 27.7% in 2024. So it's been getting much, much better.

00;06;36;18 - 00;07;12;03
Brad
Obviously, death loss can be, an issue. Calves that were excellent for serum total protein 5% death loss 42.5% death loss in calves that were in poor serum protein. So less than five. So this study really indicated that if you have poor total serum protein, which is probably indicative of quite possibly not feeding these calves colostrum, their death rate is almost 50%, almost 50%.

00;07;12;05 - 00;07;47;21
Brad
And I think that's in my opinion, quite inexcusable that 50% of of the Holstein bobcats die just because we don't want to feed them colostrum. Obviously, you know, the study concluded that calves or farms are improving in colostrum management in male calves, but obviously improvements are certainly needed. Now. There was another study. This was done in the Midwest as well, looking at conditions of calves that arrived on dairy beef farms in the Midwest.

00;07;47;21 - 00;08;18;22
Brad
So beef and dairy crosses. So in this study wanted to evaluate their condition on arrival at these facilities. So they had this was looked at during 2024 and they had about 1400 calves from Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa and assess them when they arrive at these farms, calves really arrived at these, kind of feedlot calf ranch facilities about 3 to 7 days of age.

00;08;18;22 - 00;08;51;25
Brad
So it gives you an idea of what might happen. So some of the things that are interesting in this study was on arrival to these, say, calf ranches or facilities, 48% of the calves had diarrhea. So that's that's a lot. 48% of calves were scouring at less than seven days of age, 36% of them were dehydrated. So if calves dehydrated, obviously they're not getting fed, which is quite alarming.

00;08;51;25 - 00;09;30;00
Brad
22% had navel inflammation. So not properly taking care of of the navel, dripping with iodine, etc. in 19% had some sort of depression. So physical depression that they could see. So they also looked at blood samples from these calves and that indicated that 22% of the calves on arrival had less than 5.1 for serum total protein, which is poor, so 20% about the same as the previous study.

00;09;30;00 - 00;10;00;28
Brad
So 20% of the calves are not getting adequate and two bodies from colostrum. So these results sort of indicate that there's a high percentage of beef on dairy cross calves in the Midwest that are arriving at calf ranches or other facilities with low serum total protein. They have low energy reserves and certainly signs of disease, which ultimately affects their welfare and productivity growth rates.

00;10;00;28 - 00;10;28;29
Brad
Getting them to harvest weight at optimum time just because they're bull calves or dairy beef cross calves, doesn't mean that we shouldn't take care of feeding those calves good quality colostrum. I think we do that at our research center. We talk with our calf buyers, and I will tell you that our calf buyer likes getting calves from us, pays more for them when they're young at at birth.

00;10;29;02 - 00;10;49;25
Brad
So we get probably a premium because he knows we feed them colostrum, they get vaccinated. And if you talk to him about the death rate, the death rate of calves coming out of our facility is less than 1%, may go to Sales Barn or other farms, and he's seeing 20% death rate. Now we feed colostrum just like we do with our heifer calf.

00;10;49;27 - 00;11;06;25
Brad
It's a bull calf. It doesn't matter. It gets colostrum from mom. We just are adamant about getting colostrum into those bull calves or dairy beef cross calves just as fast as we do with our heifer calves. And I think it pays off because we get a premium for our calves and they don't die when they go to a calf raiser.

00;11;06;29 - 00;11;33;08
Brad
So some of the other studies that we worked with, we even did this, in some organic calves looking at serum protein, this was to two organic farms. It was done by, a young undergraduate at Penn State University that we worked with that was collecting serum total proteins. And basically one of the farms had a serum protein level that was 6.3.

00;11;33;10 - 00;11;54;24
Brad
The other one was at 5.6. So one was in the excellent category. The other one was in the fair category. However, there was they found that there was a tendency for the calves that had survived at weaning to have higher serum total proteins than those that died before the end of this study, which looked at these calves through three months of age.

00;11;54;27 - 00;12;29;15
Brad
So they're again, even in an organic herd. We found calves that had higher serum protein, had less death loss. Another study out of Canada found that survival declined in calves that had serum total proteins less than 5.5, down to 4.5. So we know that survival in calves decreases with lower total serum protein levels. Another study briefly found that higher serum total proteins calves had higher average daily gain.

00;12;29;21 - 00;12;57;05
Brad
Now, we also did this study Isaac Kagan, dairy specialist here in Minnesota and myself. We have a graduate student, Isaac, working on some basically genetic parameters for birth weight, weaning weight, serum total protein in Holstein calves. So we have the facility in our Waseca research center, where we analyzed almost 6000 calves that were born in a 20 year time period.

00;12;57;05 - 00;13;20;21
Brad
So from 2003 to 2023, all of these calves were weaned at 56 days. So these calves were transported from the farms to our research center in Waseca. They were weighed and their serum total protein was taken. So the serum total protein wasn't always taken 24 hours after birth, but it was within a few days. Some were earlier, some were later.

00;13;20;21 - 00;13;55;14
Brad
So what did we find? Well, almost 6000 calves. Serum total protein averaged 5.8 and it ranged from 3 to 11. So obviously some calves were quite low. Some calves were really quite high, and so some were poor or some excellent. We also found some correlations between birth weight and serum total protein. So basically it shows that if serum total protein was low on arrival, when these calves arrived at the research center, their birth weight was much lower.

00;13;55;16 - 00;14;24;14
Brad
So lower birth weight calves had lower serum total proteins. Now that's not a reason to go out and say Brad says we need to select for higher birth weight in caps. That's not what I'm saying. But we just noticed that there is a correlation. Calves that are smaller at birth maybe have lower serum proteins. Weaning weight, no correlation at all between weaning weight of calves and serum total protein, but average daily gain was their 0.33.

00;14;24;14 - 00;14;57;20
Brad
So calves that have higher serum total protein on average had higher average daily gain, and this was in almost 6000 calves and Holstein calves from our research center. So it indicates that again, if you have higher serum total protein, you're probably going to have much better growth rates in your calves. So what does this mean? Well, I've always thought about serum total protein in camps.

00;14;57;23 - 00;15;19;21
Brad
And I did some studies because I'm not I'm not convinced that we really should be setting cut points and saying it's 5.0 or 5 point 5 or 6.0 or whatever. Researcher, veterinarian group wants to say, we need to have serum total protein and they all need to be above this level. I looked at some calves from our Waseca dairy herd.

00;15;19;23 - 00;15;41;11
Brad
Again, same study kind of what their serum protein is, but I looked at their milk production once they had calved to see what had happened to those animals based on serum total protein. Did it affect their milk production when they got older? Well, this was with 5000 calves, so 5000 Holstein calves. They went back to their home dairies afterwards.

00;15;41;11 - 00;16;11;02
Brad
I kind of had some levels of initial serum total protein, kind of four 4 to 4.5, 4.5 to 5, 5.0 to 5.5, and then greater than 5.5. Well, what did I find? If you look at production level, you will see that calves below 4.0 for total serum protein had lower production, probably about 1,000 pounds of milk compared to calves that were higher than 4.0.

00;16;11;07 - 00;16;40;27
Brad
Most of the calves were over 5.5, so 47% of the calves in this study were 5.5 or higher. So good quality. However, there was no difference in production for calves that were between 4.1 and higher. Whatever category there was, production level was all about 27,000 to 700 pounds of milk. Average first calving, pretty similar. Maybe a couple days here and there for them, but not much.

00;16;41;00 - 00;17;05;18
Brad
Average daily gain the same across the board. Actually the average daily gain for calves that had a serum total protein less than 4.0 was 1.89 pounds per day, which was the same for the other groups. So what does this say? I don't know, you can form your own conclusions. I'm just not sure that saying that we need to set cut points at 5.5 and everybody's got to be above that, or you're going to be detrimental to your herd.

00;17;05;18 - 00;17;24;16
Brad
I'm not so sure. I think that this study with 5000 calves kind of shows that. Yep, below 4.0, you're probably going to have some problems. You're going to have reduced milk production on those animals, and you might want to single those out so you can know that and keep track of serum total protein. Maybe production level seems to be just fine in those animals.

00;17;24;16 - 00;17;49;23
Brad
Whether they were 4.0 or 4 .5.0. But really, I think when it comes to that, we maybe need to be monitoring this. It's quite quick and inexpensive. If you get a refresh, we use a Misco digital dairy refractometer. It's about 500 bucks and it measures serum total protein in these calves. And we do monitor that. Sometimes we take serum total protein, sometimes we don't.

00;17;49;23 - 00;18;36;07
Brad
It depends on the study. I think overall our calves were running probably 6 to 6 and a half average serum total protein. So we're doing pretty good. Remember everybody gets fed colostrum right away. So I think we're we're doing quite well. So pretty inexpensive to track this monitor this. And obviously it really by tracking serum total protein maybe helps evaluate your colostrum quality your colostrum management maybe feeding times feeding techniques to these calves amount fed and really allows you to look at your calf care protocols in the future and see where you may be doing great, or where you may not be doing so good.

00;18;36;09 - 00;18;58;20
Brad
So it comes to our last thing. If you're in the Midwest here, and if you're interested, we're hosting some calf care workshops in two places in the state of Minnesota about feeding and nutrition of newborn calves. This spotting techniques and pain mitigation, newborn calf processing. So we're going to learn how to use a refractometer to evaluate colostrum quality and serum total proteins.

00;18;58;21 - 00;19;33;02
Brad
Talked about feeding strategies and pre weaning. They're free to attend for all dairy farmers employees, dairy consultants, educators, students. The first one is Tuesday, July 29th, 2025. It's set Borst Family Dairy in Rochester, Minnesota. It's from 1230 to 230. The second calf care workshop is more central Minnesota. It's at NexGen Dairy in Eden Valley. And that's Tuesday, August 5th from 1230 to 230.

00;19;33;03 - 00;19;59;19
Brad
Learn about the same things. Both workshops, different plates, places of the state. So if you're interested in learning about some of the calf care going on and our extension dairy team and and actually these workshops are approved for continuing education credits towards the farm animal care program requirements. So you can come here, learn about calf care and get continuing education credits as well for the farm program.

00;19;59;19 - 00;20;25;10
Brad
So it's a great benefit. Hopefully everybody can show up, learn about calf care and see what's happening in pre weaned calves and how to improve them I think go in there. Hopefully you've learned a little bit about serum total protein today and how to improve it. And just some of the things that's going on in the industry relative to serum total protein in calves and what's happening in both calves and dairy beef calves and heifer calves.

00;20;25;10 - 00;20;46;18
Brad
So if you have any comments, questions, scathing rebuttals, feel free to let me know. I'm more than willing to listen on this topic. Now you can check out our website, the University of Minnesota Extension. There you'll find our events on our Calf Here workshops and then other information related to raising cows. So thanks for listening. Have a good day.

00;20;46;20 - 00;20;48;28
Brad
Eat.

Episode 303 -  Improving Calf Health: What Total Serum Protein Levels Are Telling Us - UMN Extension's The Moos Room
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