Dairy farming question?

[nao57]

Well... there's not really a specific thread area for this question that fits well. I hope they'll maybe even expand the forum a bit to allow for other subject areas. Such as; a do it yourself section, a farming question area, and a few others.

Anyway, I grew up around farms. I wasn't technically on one, but both grandparents had farms and lived close by. One of the bits of information I ran into is that the first week of MILK in sheep and cows the calves and lambs need that milk especially for the colostrum in it. And that colostrum jump starts their immune system. If they don't get that special colostrum milk during their first week of life then they often are sickly, don't make it, or are more prone to illness.

What I wondered is... is this colostrum immunity limited by being from the same species types? Like for example, can sheep benefit from the colostrum in cows? Or vice versa? Or infant humans benefit from sheep or cow colostrum? This raises a lot of interesting questions I think. People sell colostrum for sheep herding for sheepherders to use to make up for this if they can't get the colostrum from another mother sheep, because its so important. Its also a thing that people are sometimes distrustful of formula milk for human kids now if its coming from certain countries. You might recall a few years ago there were some problems with many Chinese infants died from some of their infant formula being tainted with some problem.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Well... there's not really a specific thread area for this question that fits well. I hope they'll maybe even expand the forum a bit to allow for other subject areas. Such as; a do it yourself section, a farming question area, and a few others.

I disagree, I come here for information about and discussion of gardening, it's a gardening forum. If your interest is farming cows try googling 'Dairy farming forum' and you will find plenty of appropriate places.

 

[Ruderunner]

While this really is outside the scope of this site, it is an interesting question. Maybe better in the general chat area.

I'd say that while there are some antibodies that can cross species, there's probably enough that shouldn't.

 

[Charlie 001]

There are many similarities in colostrum cross species, however there are nutritional and immunity differences between them. Cow colostrum has been used for human babies but this is not recommended as a usual practice.
currently there are many strands of research being carried out on the subject
in wester countries it is common to have donor breast milk for babies that need it. There has been recent controversy over substandard formula being sold to some of the poorest countries by a few of the larger companies