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 Fall/Winter
1997 |
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If it's Good for Babies, Why Not for Calves?
Like
milk, baby formula is sold in grocery and convenience stores nationwide.
And, like milk, it has an expiration date beyond which it is considered
unfit for human consumption. Stores return millions of pounds of outdated
formula to the manufacturers every year to be disposed of in landfills
or applied to soil for nutrients, like manure. Now companies concerned
with waste management are searching for better options. One of the
most promising alternatives, says Randy Swope, a graduate student in
animal science, is to use the formula for animal feed, an option that
would save livestock producers money. "Formula has great potential
as animal feed because it's made of nutritious ingredients that maintain
their quality well beyond the expiration date for human consumption," he
says.
Swope's work with formula began in 1993, when a major manufacturer
of these products contacted Penn State animal scientist Harold Harpster,
who had been looking at various food processing by-products for cattle
feed, to see if he could help them find a new, environmentally friendly
way to dispose of baby and geriatric formulas. When funding for a graduate
assistantship became available, Harpster contacted Swope, a recent Penn
State animal science graduate who was then working as a research analyst
in Kentucky. "This project was so appealing I decided to return
to the university as a graduate student," Swope says. "Feeding
food industry by-products to animals typically results in a win-win situation.
The manufacturer cuts disposal costs, and the producer gets a source
of nutrients that costs less than conventional feeds." Feeding formula to livestock with a single stomach, such as pigs, makes
sense because they digest food in much the same way as humans do. Even
young ruminant animals such as calves and lambs, which have four parts
to their stomachs, could benefit from the high-quality nutrients in formula. "Until
a young ruminant is weaned, any liquid it swallows flows directly into
its abomasum, or true stomach," Swope explains. "Because the
formula bypasses the other three parts of the ruminant stomach, its nutrients
are protected from rumen fermentation." After comparing the nutrient content of infant and geriatric formulas
with the nutritional needs of different animals, Swope and Harpster determined
that geriatric formula might be good for swine, while infant formula
could work for calves. "Just as with human infants, a young calf's
diet must be carefully selected to avoid upsetting its digestive system," Swope
says. "Geriatric formula contains corn oil, which would give calves
diarrhea, but the ingredients in the baby formula seemed ideally suited
to a calf's digestive system." The calf trial took place at Penn State's Dairy Breeding Research Center. "We
randomly assigned 30 calves to one of three liquid diets," Swope
says. "Ten calves received a control diet of commercial milk replacer,
while the other two groups received infant formula supplemented with
either soy or whey protein concentrate. For six weeks, calves were fed
the experimental diets and their performance–a combination of growth
and feed efficiency–was evaluated. Then all of the calves were weaned
and fed the same dry diet for four weeks to see if the experimental diets
had any lingering effects." Swope measured the calves' body weights and the amount of feed they
consumed weekly. "The calves fed infant formula supplemented with
whey protein performed just as well as the calves fed the commercial
milk replacer," he says. "Those fed infant formula supplemented
with soy protein had inferior growth during the first six weeks of the
experiment, but they improved in the last four weeks. These results show
that outdated infant formula, when supplemented with a high-quality protein
source such as whey, can be used safely in calf-rearing systems with
substantial savings in feed costs. The milk replacer cost $2.21 per kilogram
of live weight gain during the first period, compared to only $.55 for
formula supplemented with soy and $1.04 for formula supplemented with
whey protein. For the best combination of performance and savings on
feed costs, formula with whey protein was the best option." Next Swope and Harpster collaborated with Penn State swine specialist
Kenneth Kephart to examine the effect of geriatric formula on swine performance.
On a commercial swine farm near Harrisburg, they fed 152 pigs either
a conventional corn and soybean-meal diet or one that included three-quarters
of a gallon of geriatric formula as well as supplemental dry feed. "At
first, pigs on the experimental diet spent six to eight hours consuming
each of their twice-daily allotments of geriatric formula," Swope
says. "But as they adapted to the new feed source, they ate the
formula more quickly. Eventually, the pigs had to compete to get their
share. That's important because a farmer trying the product might be
disappointed with low intakes for the first few days. Based on our observations,
farmers need to give it a little more time than that. In human terms,
the pigs had to develop a taste for the formula." Pigs fed the geriatric formula grew faster during the first half of
the experiment and weighed more at 84 days than pigs fed the conventional
ration. "Growth rates evened out over the entire experiment, so
slaughter weights were similar for both groups," Swope says. "However,
pigs fed the geriatric formula consumed 65 percent less dry feed than
those in the control group. Total dry matter intake, which includes both
dry feed and liquid formula dry matter, also was significantly lower
in pigs fed the geriatric formula, leading to a 16 percent improvement
in overall feed efficiency." Perhaps even more significant, at slaughter, pigs fed the geriatric
formula had less fat, more muscle, and a higher percentage of lean cuts,
so they were worth about $3.50 more per pig on a commercial grading program. "Even
our initial concerns that polyunsaturated fats in the geriatric formula
could result in oily carcasses proved unfounded," says Swope. "Such
carcasses can cause problems for meat processors, but we've heard no
complaints." Swope's work has
given producers a new source of inexpensive feed. "The cost savings
from using waste formula already are very good, and they will look
even better if grain and feed costs rise," says Harpster. "I've
never worked on a project where producers have adopted the results
so quickly. The formula manufacturer already is shipping tractor trailer
loads of the geriatric formula to some of the largest hog farms in
the country." |
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