Is colostrum the top killer of calves?

Most definitely not!! The top killer of all calves is the negligence of people who get an orphaned calf or care for calves that are too slow to get up to suckle is to notprovide colostrum to those calves immediately after birth!! Colostrum is crucial to a calf's survival because a calf has NO immunity of its after birth, only that which it can obtain from its dam's first milk (which is the definition of colostrum!) which contains high amounts of immunoglobins and antibodies which a newborn calf needs within the first 12 hours of life.