Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 89 (1): 68–71, January 2019/Article Performance and economics of Vrindavani calves fed on various proportions of whole and skim milk THAMOTHIRAN K 1 , P K BHARTI 2 , G K GAUR 3 , MUKESH SINGH 4 , S A KOCHEWAD 5 , SEEMA YADAV 6 , ARUN SOMAGOND 7 and TRIVENI DUTT 8 ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar, Uttar Pradesh 243 122 India Received: 13 July 2018; Accepted: 7 August 2018 ABSTRACT A total of 24 crossbred (Vrindavani) calves were selected and allocated to four groups (6 per group) as control (C), treatment 1 (T1), treatment 2 (T2) and treatment 3 (T3). During the experimental period, the calves in C were fed only whole milk, whereas the calves in T1, T2 and T3 groups were fed skim milk at the rate of 25, 50 and 75% of total liquid feed, respectively from 22 nd day of age. Proportion of skim milk was further increased to 50, 75 and 100% of total liquid feed requirement in T1, T2 and T3 groups, respectively from 45 th day of age onwards. Finally, in all the treatment groups, 100% skim milk was fed from 64 to 72 days of age. The total body weight gain of calves was 24.90±1.24, 25.12±3.95, 25.37±3.02 and 26.42±2.30 kg for control, T1, T2 and T3 groups, respectively which differed nonsignificantly from each other. The average daily gain did not differ significantly for any week during the experiment. The calf starter intake was significantly higher in T3 group compared to C from 4 to 6 weeks of age but both the groups differed non-significantly with T1 and T2. The total dry matter intake and feed efficiency did not differ significantly between the groups. Inclusion of skim milk in replacement with whole milk reduced the feeding cost up to 23.95% in T3 group in comparison to control during milk feeding phase without any adverse effect on growth of crossbred calves. Key words: Crossbred calves, Dry matter intake, Feeding cost, Growth, Skim milk Efficient feeding management of calves in early life is essential to their health, welfare and future performance. Feeding of colostrum followed by milk makes complete diet for neonatal calves (Tothova et al. 2016). Feeding of whole milk to the calves is not economical as butter fat is the costliest component of milk. In view of obtaining good growth performances economically, the whole milk can be partly or completely replaced with variety of ingredients. Among these the easiest one is skim milk which is a by- product of cream separation and is produced when the fat is removed from the whole milk. It had been reported by various workers that the use of skim milk in calf feeding is economical in comparison with the whole milk (Ranjan et al. 1972 and Srivastava 1977). However, most of the studies reported better results when skim milk was supplemented with fat sources (Srivastava 1977) or fed after one month from the birth of the calf (Babu et al. 2009). The primary purpose of all feeding regimes is to produce better and healthy calves with lowest possible input cost. However, the cost of raising calves under modified feeding systems needs to be calculated to explore the profitability without any adverse effect on calf’s performance. Keeping the above facts in view, the present experiment was undertaken to study the effect of feeding different levels of whole milk and skim milk on performance and feeding economics of crossbred dairy calves. MATERIALS AND METHODS Experimental design and feeding schedule: The experiment was conducted from November 2017 to April 2018 at Cattle and Buffalo Farm of the institute. A total of 24 crossbred (Vrindavani) calves were selected for the proposed study. The calves were separated from the dam on the very first day of their birth and were provided with colostrum from their respective dams for the first three days. The calves were allocated alternately but equally into four groups (6 calves per group), viz. control (C), treatment 1 (T1), treatment 2 (T2) and treatment 3 (T3) based on their birth weight. The birth weight of calves was non-significant between the groups. Distribution of male and female calves was in the ratio of 4:2 in all groups. Calves in C were maintained only on whole milk throughout the experiment after colostrum feeding. In T1, skim milk was introduced from 22 nd day of age to the level of 25% of total requirement Present address: 1,6,7 MVSc Scholar (thamothiran1@gmail. com, seemayadav221@gmail.com, arunsomagond@gmail.com), 2,5 Scientist (pkish.1002@gmail.com, sanjiv_kochewad @yahoo.com), 3,4 Principal Scientist (gyanendrakg@gmail.com, drmsingh9@gmail.com), 8 Joint Director (triveniduttivri @gmail.com). 68 https://doi.org/10.56093/ijans.v89i1.86386