A group of people were sitting around a table, eating and chatting. The topic of conversation turned to how one person chose not to take any antibiotic so as not to destroy the useful microbes in his gut.
It turned out that another person had experience with wild life in captivity. When a young calf was isolated from its parents because the keepers feared the father harming the calf, the vet immediately injected the mother animal's blood under the young calf's skin. As the blob of blood was gradually absorbed, the young was protected with the mother animal's antibodies.
But how does this young animal derive the protection of useful microbes since it did not suckle the mother animal's milk? The answer shocked some of us: just dab a bit of the mother's dung into the young's mouth! Now, we would rather not do that for babies who do not suckle, would we?
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