New Farmer. Any advice?

[JohnBoysWife]

My mother in law owns a small farm. Since my father in law passed away a year and a half ago my husband and I have kind of taken over the operation. In the spring was my first time raising chicks so I researched a bunch and got that figured out now on to cattle. We previously had 2 cows. One is at the butcher as we speak. We just purchased two 3/4 simm-angus heifers born in March the other day. I've never worked with calves before. We are feeding them hay and purina precon since that is they were being fed. My questions are what and how much should we be feeding them, is there something we shouldn't give them, and what's the next step? Our other cows are given hay, corn, and sweet mix. Should we transition the calves to sweet mix soon? My mother in law knows about farming. I call it old school farming because it's just everything her dad did. Since we've got involved I question why things are done the way they are for my personal knowledge and to see if there's a more efficient way. I just want to do what's best for the animals. She said we need to start feeding them apples. So I researched it and now I'm afraid they're going to choke. I'm like a first-time mother so any advice I would greatly appreciate. Thank you in advance!

 

[Kingfisher]

Where are you located?

 

[JohnBoysWife]

We are in Northeast Ohio.

 

[msplmtneer]

Howdy and :welcome: to the board :tiphat:

 

[dieselbeef]

grass(hay) water..pretty much will get by on that

 

[Rafter S]

Welcome to the forum. I'd gradually transition them off the Purina Pre-conditioning feed and onto the same feed you're giving the older cattle. And I don't know anything about feeding apples, but I've occasionally fed pears to heifers for a treat. I always cut them into smaller pieces; 1/4 sections or smaller.

 

[Dave]

I have fed the Purina pre con in the past. It is a great feed for weaning but I switched off I to another feed at about day 14. By then they will be over missing mom and they will have learned to eat grain. I have also fed apples but only because they are there under my trees. I cut them in half which allows the calves to chew them easier. There isn't a lot of nutrient in the apples. They are mostly water. It is more of a treat than a good source of nutrition.

 

[Jessica06]

I agree with Dave on switching them over from Precon once they are eating good and settled down. It's more of transition type feed...really high in fiber so it won't mess their stomachs up, good protein, but not much energy to speak of. Very good for weaning or getting them ready to transition to a "hotter" ration. Since they were March babies, you're probably looking at breeding them no sooner than May. A lot of people try to shoot for a target weight that they want their heifers to be at for breeding; I prefer to get them to a certain body condition. A minimum of 5 for heifers. There are lots of places online that have a list of all of the body condition scores (BCS) with pictures to give you a good idea. As a general rule, cattle are fed 2.5% of their body weight for maximum gain, or anywhere under that down to, say, 1% if you just want to "toodle" them along. If they are pretty big already, you might not need to feed them really hard. Maybe not even every day if the hay is good quality. We have about 25 Jan-March heifers that we are going to try to hand feed through the winter, instead of putting a bulk feeder out in the spring. 100# of DDG every other day is the plan, along with hay once it freezes. We'll see how they do! One thing you'll learn with cattle is that there's almost never one right way to do something, and it's ok to do something different than you did in the past. Feed prices change, cattle prices change, and because of that flexibility is key!