Use of brix refractometer in assessing sheep colostrum

Abstract

Ensuring lambs have consumed enough high-quality colostrum to achieve successful passive immunity transfer is critical to mitigating health risks and mortality rates in neonates. Unlike the situation in dairy cattle where various tools can be used to assess colostrum quality, little opportunity is available to quantitatively evaluate sheep colostrum easily. More recently the Brix refractometer has been validated for assessing colostrum immunoglobin (IgG) concentration in cattle and dairy goats. The objective of this study was to determine if the Brix refractometer can provide an accurate assessment of colostrum IgG concentration in meat-breed sheep.