SERUM ANTIBODY CONCENTRATION OF ETTAWAH CROSSBRED NEONATUS FOLLOWING VARIOUS COLOSTRUM CONSUMPTION

For many Reasons, a lot of newborn kids have no access to their mother's colostrum and are therefore not protected against neonatal diseases. These problems may be avoided by giving an alternative soirce of immunoglobulin such as natural bovine colostrum, bovine colostrum products, and more recently colostrum replacers (commercially available colostral-supplement products), but their efficacy in providing immunoglobulin for pasive transfer on newborn kids is not well estabilished. Therefore, this experiment was conducted to determine the serum IgG concentration of Ettawah crossbred neonates following various colostrum consumptions. Twenty four healthy neonatal kids were used in this experiment, and were divided into four groups. Each group received fresh maternal (goat) colostrum (Group A), frozen-thawed bovine colostrum (Group B), bovine spray dried colostrum (Group C), and bovine powder commercial colostrum (Group D), respectively. Colostrum were given to the kids at amounts of 10% of body weight directly after kidding and followed by the same amount every 12 h, for three days. Total IgG in the colostrums given are as follows : 2.9, 5.2, 2.1, and 2.2 g at the first feeding, and 1.3, 3.2, 2.1, and 2.2 g at the scond feeding, for kids fed fresh maternal, frozen thawed bovine, bovine spray dried, and commercial bovine colostrum, respectively. Blood saples of kids were drawn from jugular vein at 0, 12, 24, 48, 72 and 168 h after birth to determine serum IgG concentration. IgG concentrations were analyzed using ELISA Technique. Results of this experiment indicated that serum IgG concentration of all group of neonates reach the highest level at 24 h after birth (P<0,05). The serum IgG concentration of the neonates consumed fresh goat colostrums. fresh bovine colostrums, spray dried bivine colostrum and commercial bovine colostrum were 4.96 + 0.12, 3,19 + 1.23, 2.20 + 0.25, and 3.08 +0.49mg/ml, respectively, IgG concentrationof neonates consumed fresh goat and bovine spray dried colostrums were then decreased significantly (P<0.05) until 72 h after birth, while in neonates received spray dried bovine colostrums, the IgG decrease during 24 to 28 h (P<0.005). The IgG concentration were then remained constant expect in neonates consumed commercial bovine colostrum which continued to decrease until the observation commenced at 168 h after birth (P<0.05). In conclusion, the highest concentration of IgG were on the neonates consumed fresh goat colostrum (group A), Followed by frozen -thawed bovine (Group B), commercial bovine (Group D), and bovine spray dried colostrum (Group C), respectively).