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<blockquote data-quote="milkmaid" data-source="post: 334390" data-attributes="member: 852"><p>Depends on the age of the heifers. You'll have a bunch of unhealthy, unthrifty, prone-to-illness, underweight, poor quality heifers if you feed them that way below about 600-800lbs. There's a reason that hobby farmers have a lot of potbellied bottle calves -- it's because they don't feed enough protein and they don't get adequate nutrition. </p><p></p><p>There's nothing wrong with cutting back on a heifer's grain -- <em>unless </em>it causes poor development and she gets stunted. Beef heifers are fed differently than dairy heifers, period. Most of the time when I encounter stunted bottle calves, it's because the owner was used to feeding beef cow/calf pairs and didn't know how to feed a dairy bottle calf.</p><p></p><p>Feeding a lot of grain can cause a heifer to grow in excess of 1.8lb ADG, and while IMO it's not a bad thing, it can cause decreased milk production <em>in the <u>first </u>lacation</em>. Subsequent lactations are not affected.</p><p></p><p>FWIW, someone selling dairy heifers does not need to be concerned with how well they milk after they're sold, and it's to their advantage to get the heifers resold as quickly as possible. If you cut the grain but feed them for 3 1/2 years, you'll end up putting more into them than if you feed them for 20 months, and you can raise more animals in the same period of time and sell more animals in the same period of time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="milkmaid, post: 334390, member: 852"] Depends on the age of the heifers. You'll have a bunch of unhealthy, unthrifty, prone-to-illness, underweight, poor quality heifers if you feed them that way below about 600-800lbs. There's a reason that hobby farmers have a lot of potbellied bottle calves -- it's because they don't feed enough protein and they don't get adequate nutrition. There's nothing wrong with cutting back on a heifer's grain -- [i]unless [/i]it causes poor development and she gets stunted. Beef heifers are fed differently than dairy heifers, period. Most of the time when I encounter stunted bottle calves, it's because the owner was used to feeding beef cow/calf pairs and didn't know how to feed a dairy bottle calf. Feeding a lot of grain can cause a heifer to grow in excess of 1.8lb ADG, and while IMO it's not a bad thing, it can cause decreased milk production [i]in the [u]first [/u]lacation[/i]. Subsequent lactations are not affected. FWIW, someone selling dairy heifers does not need to be concerned with how well they milk after they're sold, and it's to their advantage to get the heifers resold as quickly as possible. If you cut the grain but feed them for 3 1/2 years, you'll end up putting more into them than if you feed them for 20 months, and you can raise more animals in the same period of time and sell more animals in the same period of time. [/QUOTE]
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