Think back to when you were 12 years old. What was your dream job then? Did you want to be a doctor or a lawyer? Maybe it was a cowboy or a baseball player. Perhaps you are fortunate to work in the profession that you dreamed of when you were younger.

When a dairy heifer is born, we know what profession we want her to enter into: a high-producing dairy cow!  We talk about how every good dairy cow will eventually have a career change and become a beef cow, but at first, we want them to have every opportunity to grow up and produce milk. The first few months of growth and development are crucial for success. For every young bovine, whether a beef breed or a dairy breed, weaning presents a major challenge to that young animal on being able to grow up to fulfill its profession. But while a beef calf may have six to eight months to prepare for this challenge, a dairy calf may only have six to eight weeks to prepare for the same stressful situation. This means a dairy calf must develop the rumen’s ability to break down and absorb nutrients to sustain life and promote growth in about 25% of the time given to a beef calf.

For the first few months of every mammal’s life, milk provides the nutrients required for growth. Numerous studies have been conducted showing the benefits of increasing milk consumption in dairy calves beyond the traditional four quarts per day. By providing seven quarts or more, calves are able to increase average daily gains which results in increased milk production during the first lactation. The increased milk consumption does come with some risks, such as decreased grain intake which suppresses rumen development.  If the rumen isn’t developed adequately, neutral detergent fiber digestibility decreases at weaning time, preventing the calf from absorbing adequate levels of nutrients to sustain growth, negating all the gains made on milk.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to provide higher levels of milk in the pre-weaning phase to dairy calves, without compromising rumen development? The answer may lie in the bacteria in the rumen. Megasphaera elsdenii is a rumen-native bacterium that scavenges lactic acid in the rumen and produces butyrate. This seemingly insignificant process allows a substrate that can impede rumen development (lactic acid) to be removed while providing a substrate (butyrate) which is the primary nutrient responsible for papillae – the structures in the rumen that absorb nutrients into the blood stream – to proliferate.

Multiple studies conducted on pre-weaned calves have demonstrated that by inoculating Megasphaera elsdenii via Lactipro®, rumen weights within four weeks of inoculation are heavier and papillae are longer and denser.  This increase in rumen development leads to more starter consumption and greater pre-weaning weights.  Unlike milk studies that have led to decreased post-weaning performance when calves are fed more milk pre-weaning, studies with Lactipro have shown even when offered free choice milk, calves dosed with Lactipro consumed more starter and weight gain increased from 12 pounds heavier at weaning to 27 pounds heavier two weeks post-weaning compared to control calves in the same time period.

Successfully raising dairy calves to become high-producing dairy cows requires efficiently developing the rumen in as little as two months. Ensuring the proper bacteria are in the rumen allows the calf to maximize pre-weaning gains, without losing post-weaning efficiency.