Sharon Knorr wrestled with a keyboard and this emerged:

> >From an equine (horse) reference book:
>
> "To be effective in protection against disease, however, colostrum
> must be ingested within a few hours after birth, preferably within
> 15 to 30 minutes, because gut closure occurs about 24 to 30 hours
> after birth.  Subsequently, the foal digests these large molecular
> weight proteins, with the loss of their immunization properties."

A related issue is the fact that within a few weeks these foals are
also starting to consume adult food.  A yearling only gets a taste of
milk if it can sweet-talk mom into it but a human "yearling" is meant
to still be ingesting the majority of its nutrition via milk.  The
guts of many other animals need to seal more quickly because they are
graduated to adult diets more quickly than are human babies.

I wonder how this compares with other long-term nursers/nurturers
such as the other primates, the cetaceans and the elephants?

Regards,
Beth

--
Beth Johnson
just south of where volleyball was invented
"Just what are Velma and Fred doing in the Mystery Machine,
and why are Scooby and Shaggy always so *hungry*?"

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