Milk replacers
Milk replacers or milk substitutes consist basically of skim milk powder and lard or vegetable fat although a proportion of butter milk powder and whey powder is often included. A small proportion of glucose, soyabean flour and cereal flour may also be added together with certain minerals and vitamins. If good quality milk replacer is used, there is no need for feeding any whole mil
k after the Colostrum feeding. General characteristics of good quality milk replacers
Contains minimum 50 per cent spray dried skim milk powder
Contains 10-15 per cent stabilized high quality fat, mainly lard homogenized into skim milk or butter milk before spray drying. Incorporated with antibiotic feed additives. Should contain 22-25 per cent good quality protein. Should not contain starch or fibre. Should be readily dispersible in water. Should flow well as a powder for automatic feeding equipment. Milk replacer should be mixed in correct proportion in warm water, since dilutions which are too weak or too strong tends to create digestive problems. Optimum ratio of milk replacer (kg) and water (litre) is 1: 8. Good milk replacer composition should contain spray dried skimmed milk powder of 50 parts, dried whey of 10 pars and non-milk source of 40 parts.
