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Average daily gain?
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<blockquote data-quote="DiamondSCattleCo" data-source="post: 220601" data-attributes="member: 2862"><p>I get the feeling we're talking about different aged calves, and I should have been more descriptive. I won't pull a calf off a cow until weaning day, and never less than 500 lbs. I prefer to see 550 or 600 weights. No milk replacer needed as they're already going on solid feed. I've weaned calves at 400 lbs, and it just takes them too long to get going. So when you look at it that way, sure, the calves definitely do better on momma. </p><p></p><p>But once they hit weaning age, I think I can get better growth off the cow, with reduced inputs. After weaning, the amount of feed I need to stick in the pen of adults is just about half. Of course, some of that ends up in the calf pen, but the rest is forage savings. My calves seem to level off at that 2.5 - 3 lbs/day gain on the cow. I guess I could do an experiment and leave a calf on the cow until 7 weight and measure its performance, but I think that'd be awful hard on my small framed cows. And given that their growth seems to level off, I think what I'd be left with is a calf gaining at 2.5 - 3 lbs/day, versus the 3.5 lbs/day I get off the cow.</p><p></p><p>Milkmaid, are you also talking about Holsteins? If so, my smaller framed beefers likely don't milk heavy enough to get much more than the 2.5 lbs/day growth. My average is brought up by some heavy milkers that I suspect have some milking Shorthorn in their background and some bigger framed Simm crosses. I can see a big ol' heavy milking Holstein successfully feeding a much larger calf...</p><p></p><p>Rod</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DiamondSCattleCo, post: 220601, member: 2862"] I get the feeling we're talking about different aged calves, and I should have been more descriptive. I won't pull a calf off a cow until weaning day, and never less than 500 lbs. I prefer to see 550 or 600 weights. No milk replacer needed as they're already going on solid feed. I've weaned calves at 400 lbs, and it just takes them too long to get going. So when you look at it that way, sure, the calves definitely do better on momma. But once they hit weaning age, I think I can get better growth off the cow, with reduced inputs. After weaning, the amount of feed I need to stick in the pen of adults is just about half. Of course, some of that ends up in the calf pen, but the rest is forage savings. My calves seem to level off at that 2.5 - 3 lbs/day gain on the cow. I guess I could do an experiment and leave a calf on the cow until 7 weight and measure its performance, but I think that'd be awful hard on my small framed cows. And given that their growth seems to level off, I think what I'd be left with is a calf gaining at 2.5 - 3 lbs/day, versus the 3.5 lbs/day I get off the cow. Milkmaid, are you also talking about Holsteins? If so, my smaller framed beefers likely don't milk heavy enough to get much more than the 2.5 lbs/day growth. My average is brought up by some heavy milkers that I suspect have some milking Shorthorn in their background and some bigger framed Simm crosses. I can see a big ol' heavy milking Holstein successfully feeding a much larger calf... Rod [/QUOTE]
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