If you’re breeding animals on your lifestyle block, then this little recipe from back in my grandfather’s days of farming, is a good little recipe to have in your toolkit.
When a newborn lamb, piglet, kid, or calf arrives, and the mother can’t produce colostrum—or isn’t letting them feed—time is everything. Real mother’s colostrum is always the gold standard because of the crucial antibodies it provides, but when you are in a pinch at 6:00 PM and don’t have commercial colostrum replacer on hand, this emergency mix can supply the vital energy, fats, and protein a weak newborn needs to survive until you can get proper supplies from your local farmstore or a neighbour.
Emergency Colostrum Recipe:
Ingredients:
- 1L of cow’s milk (full-fat, blue top)
- 1 egg, whisked
- 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil (original recipe I have seen used Castor Oil, but I never have any in the pantry)
- 2 tsp sugar
Method:
- Put all ingredients into a pot and slowly heat on the stovetop until it reaches 39ºC. Keep stirring constantly until all the sugar has dissolved.
- Do some maths! You will need to feed the animal based on its weight. The general rule of thumb for newborn livestock is to provide roughly 10% to 15% of their body weight in colostrum over their first 24 hours, split into frequent small feeds every 2 to 4 hours.
Lamb Example: A lamb needs 15% of its body weight in those first 24 hours. So, a 4kg lamb would need 600ml of colostrum. If you split that into 6 feeds every four hours, they need 100ml per feed.
Calf Example: A calf needs 10%–15% of its body weight in its first 24 hours. For a 40kg calf at 15%, that’s 6 Litres total. Split into 6 feeds every four hours, that works out to 1 Litre (1,000ml) per feed.
Piglet Example: A newborn piglet needs about 15% of its body weight over 24 hours. For a 1.2kg piglet, that’s 180ml total. Because their stomachs are tiny, split this into 12 small feeds (every 2 hours), which is 15ml per feed.
