help with holstein calves

[cowgirl Ibara]

Hi im 17 and i raise holstein calves with my local FFA program. For several years i have been told by my advisers that by fair when our calves turn 4 months old that they should be eatting 8 bottles of milk and eatting about 3 pounds of grain a day. But I've been told that i should never feed my calves hays or grass hays because it gives them a hay belly. Most calves fill out really nice but mine always have sunkin in holes up by their hip bones and they are never bloomed by the time show comes. More people have told me that they wean their calves at 3 months or their calves only eat 4 bottles of milk so their appitie for hay and sweet feed increases. Some others say they always feed their calves hay because they have to grow from the belly up to have a nice full bloom. Does anyone have any advice or tips that may help me and my calves? Thanks

 

[WarriorPatriot]

I raise holstein calves too. I do steers.

What I have done with mine is have them all on the bottle for maybe two months. These are all day old dairy bottle babies. They get a bottle twice a day. Then after they're well on the bottle (colostrum first couple days, then milk replacer) and healthy I give them free choice sweet feed and hay after a few weeks. When we wean them they get all the hay they can eat plus their sweet feed twice a day. When they are around 4 months old I start putting them on calf grower at 3lbs and up it until they can get to 6lbs-8lbs. which is how our growing feeding directions specify, because what we have, if they eat over 6-8 it will start turning into fat, not muscle. And of course free choice hay, they need to fill out. The thing is, they are dairy, not beef. Dairy are supposed to be angular and fine not buff and heavy built. There are steers out there you see that can out do quite a bit of beef steers, but it's not preferred.

My feeding routine works for me and the judge seems to like it. We've gotten two 1st, two seconds, one 3rd and four Grand and Reserves. But what works in our area may not work in yours.

 

[cowgirl Ibara]

I raise holstein calves too. I do steers.

What I have done with mine is have them all on the bottle for maybe two months. These are all day old dairy bottle babies. They get a bottle twice a day. Then after they're well on the bottle (colostrum first couple days, then milk replacer) and healthy I give them free choice sweet feed and hay after a few weeks. When we wean them they get all the hay they can eat plus their sweet feed twice a day. When they are around 4 months old I start putting them on calf grower at 3lbs and up it until they can get to 6lbs-8lbs. which is how our growing feeding directions specify, because what we have, if they eat over 6-8 it will start turning into fat, not muscle. And of course free choice hay, they need to fill out. The thing is, they are dairy, not beef. Dairy are supposed to be angular and fine not buff and heavy built. There are steers out there you see that can out do quite a bit of beef steers, but it's not preferred.

My feeding routine works for me and the judge seems to like it. We've gotten two 1st, two seconds, one 3rd and four Grand and Reserves. But what works in our area may not work in yours.

I usually get 7 day old calves but this year I got a 1 day old and he was on colostrum that I had gotten form the dairy. Then i moved him onto the milk replacer and gave him free choice grain. For the longest time he just wasnt interested and would turn his nose to it. At about 4 weeks old he would start to nibble at it a little but he was a full out milk baby. Ive been really struggling to get my calves to fill out so what you described to me sounds like it would help out a lot, especially with milk prices going up. Also this year at my fair their was a little heifer angus X holstein and she won Reserve. She was fed to be really beefy but the judge loved it. Thanks for your advice and I'll work some of your tactics into my feeding program especially the hay. Has anyone heard of milk pellets? Someone from my feed store told me to cut out all the milk im feeding and give my calves milk pellets instead since most of the milk is just water weight and goes straight threw the calves digestive system. Thank you

 

[WarriorPatriot]

Hope everything goes well for you. My feeding program may work for you, may not. If you try it I guess you'll just have to wait and see! My steer I have now is around 8 months old now. He was off grain for a while and on hay because we were going to put them all through auction...but mine ended up staying. (Love my advisors :roll: :lol: ) So he looks like crap. In about a week he is going back on grower and alfalfa instead of his mix hay. I may be able to get some pictures of him. He doesn't look great since he hasn't been on full feed yet.

 

[cowgirl Ibara]

Thanks I'll just have to experiment and try some new things ^_^ Ya i still have the holstein that i took to fair in May since my adviser told me not to give him hay, back off on grain and give him more milk. Some of my other friends had their calves on 12 bottles of milk or more. Ive never been that extreme with milk though. So my calf was the only one in our chapter who didnt make market. I was bummed -_- but someone bought him and gave him back to me outside of auction. But i hope things work out with your steer. I would like to see pictures once you get them up ^_^ i have a couple pictures of my calves form this year up if your interest. Thank you for your help.

 

[WarriorPatriot]

I would love to see pictures of your steer. Nice that you guys have market for your steers, ours are only shown in dairy beef and they don't auction dairy steers. I wish they did, you spend all the money and time on them and then you don't sell them at fair. Then, our advisor takes them all to auction and SHE gets the money for them. :roll: Thank goodness I have a buyer for my steer and she's paying for all his feed until he's ready to slaughter next summer because she doesn't have anywhere to keep him so he's staying on the land lab. BUT once again, my advisor gets the payment for him.... :roll:

This is him quite a while ago, months ago. His name is Whiz. All hairy and didn't know how to pose.

Here he is in April at the show. Our showmanship class was huge! We could hardly fit everyone in the ring and it took a long time so we were all tired.

He used to be black. He faded all the way through his long coat and when I clipped him I thought he would be black underneath...wrong! I might get him some color enhancer this year.

He was a shorty at five months! Still kinda is lol.

Sorry some of them are grainy, our barn is dark. I need to get some updated ones after he is all cleaned up again!

 

[cowgirl Ibara]

Awww he is so cute!! The coats on my turn brown to. I didnt know they had a coat enhanser. Sounds interesting. Wow he is really hairy just like mine. Do you slick shear your calves? Ive seen some other calves and their hair stays really short. Thats weird why does your adviser get all the money? My adviser doesnt pay for anything beside the occasonl vaccinations we do. So do you ever make any money off of your animals? I understand show day gah its the longest day out of the week. Usually its always the hottest to. ^_^

 

[WarriorPatriot]

There are coat enhancers for horses and such, or feed. Like Black-as-Knight feed for horses, but I've never used that on my steers.

We have to slick shear our calves. You have to for dairy animals at shows here. I prefer them clipped anyway, a lot easier keeping and they look a whole lot nicer.

A few of us go with our advisor to pick up calves at the dairy and help take them home. She buys them as a chapter project for classes to come in and take care of them for a certain time period then they get turned out to pasture and sit there for half a year until she takes them to auction. I don't know why. So the 'chapter' pays for them, therefore the chapter is going to get the sale money too, never mind what we put into them. Since I'll be returning to county with my calf, I won't be doing another calf and this is my senior year. I may the year after, go buy my own, feed it and show it then sell it.

 

[cowgirl Ibara]

We dont slick shear our calves down here but it looks really nice and you can actually see the calf instead of all the poof products they use to give calves an "edge". Natural is much better ^_^ wow my adviser says every man for himself. We buy our own prodjects and if they live then great if not then oh well to bad try again next year. But we raise them then at 4 months go to the local fair and show then auction them. Im going into my senior year 2. Im hopefully going to try and raise 2 calves this year. Double the fun of runny noses and sour milk ^_^

 

[WarriorPatriot]

This is the only picture I could get of him yesterday. It was in the shed so its dark and cramped I hade to do some turning of the camera to get his body in the frame. Our big steer outside was having a fit and swinging his head at me so I couldn't get pictures of Whiz on his sides and such. But you can kind of see the condition he's lost. I started him back on his feed yesterday. He shovels down 6 1/4lbs. easily starting with no problems. Compared to my friend's calf that's been on feed fully this whole time, he looks sad lol.

He is growing though!

And this is King, the big dumb fat head that likes to try and push me around. He used to be mine. My friend (in the picture) then took him to fair once, let him sit all summer and got to re-train him for this years fair. He was a complete terror. Still is when you try to walk him. Luckily his time is coming this August ;-) He will be used for our chapter BBQ.


King after a bath. This picture is from around March of this year. He is not on feed.

And one from yesterday, that's not that good. Yeah he LOOKS innocent...

 

[cowgirl Ibara]

they usually do look innocent dont they? I was cleaning out my pen yesterday and mine decided "oh hey im bored so when mom turns her back im going to hitch a ride!!" So the little bugger tried to jump me. He came up with opps when i pinched the heck out of his nose ^_^ But he gets a new home this week. Gets to go live on a ranch 2 hours away with some horses and other cattle. He can go ahead and jump them. hehe ^^ But wow!! King is huge! He looks nice, he'll make some good BBQ!! My friend just butchered her steer and she gets to eat him for 4th of July. nothing like home grown thats for sure. But my calf lost a lot of condition also. He is still so holy even though he is eatting me out of house and home with his grain bill ^_^ But wiz is so cute!! I wish they stayed small.

 

[WarriorPatriot]

Hehe steers are silly sometimes. Eh, King tried to mount my friend one time. Boy was she shaken! It only added to her fear of working with him. I just turned around and I was like oh crap...I happened to have a shovel in my hand so I gave him one hard in the side and she punched him in the nose. :lol: The look on King's face afterward! Sometimes Whiz will just be sitting there then I hear a crash or something fall over and the boys all run. They just can't help themselves!


Do you have pictures of your beast?

 

[cowgirl Ibara]

Oh my boys have guilty little faces to. When they know for sure they've done something wrong, their ears will droop and then their eyes will get all runny. ^_^ but yeppers i have some pics of them in my gallery i dont know how to paste pics in a post yet.