Invited review: Transitioning from milk to solid feed in dairy heifers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Calves are born with a physically and metabolically underdeveloped rumen and initially rely on milk to meet nutrient demands for maintenance and growth. Initiation of solid feed consumption, acquisition of anaerobic microbes, establishment of rumen fermentation, expansion of rumen in volume, differentiation and growth of papillae, development of absorption and metabolic pathways, maturation of salivary apparatus and development of rumination behavior are all needed as the calf shifts from dependence on milk to solid feed. In nature and some production systems (e.g., most beef calves), young ruminants obtain nutrients from milk and fresh forages. In intensive dairying, calves are typically fed restricted amounts of milk and weaned onto starter feeds. Here we review the empirical work on the role of feeding and management during the transition from milk to solid feed in establishing the rumen ecosystem, rumen fermentation, rumen development, rumination behavior, and growth of dairy calves. In recent years, several studies have illustrated the benefits of feeding more milk and group rearing of dairy calves to take advantage of social facilitation (e.g., housing with peers or dam), and this review also examines the role of solid feed on rumen development and growth of calves fed large quantities of milk and reared under different housing situations. We conclude that the provision of high-starch and low-fiber starter feeds may negatively affect rumen development and that forage supplementation is beneficial for promoting development of the gut and rumination behavior in young calves. It is important to note that both the physical form of starter diets and their nutritional composition affect various aspects of development in calves. Further research is warranted to identify an optimal balance between physically effective fiber and readily degradable carbohydrates in starter diets to support development of a healthy gut and rumen, rumination behavior, and growth in young calves.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.011 | 0.003 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".