My wonderful father-in-law, Cecil Phillips, has been an award-winning cattle
rancher most of his life and tells me that no rancher in his right mind
would spend time bottle-feeding calves unless it was absolutely
necessary--for ex, a dead or very ill mother. If the rancher has already
lost the financial investment in the mother, it would be foolish and
uncaring not to give the calf the colostrum replacer in the hopes that at
least the calf would survive. In other words, it is a last resort in
calf-feeding (wouldn't that be nice for human babies?).

In the dairy industry, however, things are different. Humans don't drink
bovine colostrum so the dairy calves do get this from their mothers, but are
weaned at a few days old because the dairy farmer gets more profit feeding
cows milk to people than to dairy calves. These calves routinely get
"formula".

Mary Alice Phillips, RN, BSN,  IBCLC
Wamego, Kansas
private practice LC