Care needed with supplementary colostrum to avoid 'unintended consequences'

With many smallholders lambing season fast approaching, new on-farm research is highlighting the serious 'unintended consequences' of poor colostrum storage and equipment hygiene.

- 

The research was carried out during last year’s lambing on a typical commercial flock by the University of Glasgow and Monitor Farm Scotland programme. It discovered that 80% of the farm’s supplementary colostrum tested failed total bacterial count tests.

High bacterial counts cause a number of serious issues, explains Ali Haggerty, a vet with The Stewartry Veterinary Centre in Castle Douglas, Dumfriesshire. “Remember lambs have no antibodies of their own at birth and are reliant on the transfer of antibodies from maternal colostrum across the gut to gain immunity to disease in the first few weeks of life.

“Bacteria can inhibit the transfer of passive immunity to the lamb, can break up the antibodies in colostrum rendering them ineffective, and block the uptake of antibodies across the lamb’s gut. They can also damage the gut itself meaning antibodies can no longer cross, and, of course, can cause disease in their own right.”

When looking at coliforms, the bugs that can be particularly responsible for the deleterious effects on colostrum and are associated with faecal contamination, the research found 60% of samples on farm exceeded acceptable thresholds.

While the results may seem shocking, bacteria can quickly multiply, she explains. “Bacteria grow exponentially and can double their population very, very rapidly. Colostrum left at ambient temperature—like you might find sitting in a container or feeding equipment in the lambing shed while you’re busy working around the pens—offers both the optimal temperature and nutrients that speeds up bacterial growth by shortening their doubling time.

“As an example, bacteria like E.coli can have a generation time of 20-30 minutes, so if we start with, say 1,000 bacteria, the population could increase to 2,000 in 20 minutes, 4,000 in 40 minutes and 8,000 in an hour and so on,” she adds.