Detection and quantitation of pea and soy-derived proteins in calf milk replacers

Preruminant calves on several farms had diarrhea nonresponsive to treatment and were doing poorly, despite being fed a high quality calf milk replacer. Because these reconstituted milk replacers always had a sediment, they were suspected of containing insoluble nonmilk-derived proteins. Microscopic examination of the milk replacer, however, did not show any evidence of starch granules. We therefore analyzed the samples by SDS PAGE. We were able to identify and quantitate pea protein in calf milk replacers in which all the protein was supposedly milk-derived. We were also able to differentiate polypeptides derived from pea and soy. We concluded that PAGE is a sensitive technique for detecting nonmilk-derived proteins in calf milk replacers.