grain feeding new calf

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cattletom

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my new bull calf that was rejected by his mother(long story),anyway he will be 2 weeks old fri the 9th, he is doing good. he is taking the milk replacer real well but i was told to introduce him to a good quality calf starter grain at about 3-4 days old. he is not touching it. how should i introduce him to it. i have tried to hand feed him /put it in a bucket /everything but he wont touch it. is he still to young or will he eventually start eating it. any suggestions would be helpful. tommy
 
For starters, some calves are really slow at getting into eating grain. Some like it with a lot of mollassas others like it without.
After he finishes his bottle(bucket) of milk replacer and still has his sucker going, poke/dribble/shove some grain in his mouth. He'll spit out drop most of it, but do it again. A couple of times of doing it along with having a small amount of fresh starter in front of him and he will get the idea. How much replacer are you feeding and does he have fresh water in front of him at all times?

dun

cattletom":2lahdxmr said:
my new bull calf that was rejected by his mother(long story),anyway he will be 2 weeks old fri the 9th, he is doing good. he is taking the milk replacer real well but i was told to introduce him to a good quality calf starter grain at about 3-4 days old. he is not touching it. how should i introduce him to it. i have tried to hand feed him /put it in a bucket /everything but he wont touch it. is he still to young or will he eventually start eating it. any suggestions would be helpful. tommy
 
We bought our holstein heifer when she was 5 weeks old. She hadn't been started on grain yet. We put some grain in a pie plate, added milk or warm water to it to soften it up, then smeared a bit on her tongue. It took about two times to realize that this was something she really liked. After that she'd clean up the plate herself.
 
The replacers that I'm familiar with run 2 cups per 2 quarts, but the measuring cup that comes with the replacer will be properly calibrated for their product. You can give them too much, but that isn't a real big problem as much as under feeding is. Within reason of course. Most replacers call for 3-4 pints twice a day for small breeds, 4-5 pints twice a day for large breeds. I've just alwasy arbitrarily set 85 lbs as the break point between large and small, but usually just go with 2 quarts twice a day. If the little bugger is 100+ I'ld sure go with the 5 pints. I'm also assuming this is a high quality replacer, i.e. milk and milk byproducts as the primary ingredients rather then plant based.
I'm also a believer in weaning bottle calves early, 6-8 weeks as long as they are eating adequate grain.

dun


cattletom":24hzttc6 said:
dun he is gewtting about 8-10 onces with about 2-2 1/2 quarts of warm water twice a day is this enough or to much.. can u give him to much

tommy
 

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