Weaning Bottle Beef Calf

[sfinney]

I have a 3 and a half month old orphaned bottle beef calf...About 175 to 200 pounds. We have gradually reduced the amount of her milk to 2 quarts twice a day and has been at that rate for 2 weeks. She is eating about 3 pounds of calf starter daily along with some hay and grass. We moved her to pasture during the day for about 10 days and brought her in the barn for the evening. She has been on pasture 24 hours a day for 3 days. Our vet said to go to 1 quart of milk once daily for about a week. 1 quart daily doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

What is the best way to wean her off the bottle? Further reduce the amount of milk in her feedings or at this age is it best to go cold turkey and cut her off.

Thanks for any assitance.

Steve

 

[ChrisB]

We would usually cut down to once a day feeding for a few days and then just quit. But we would have weaned about 6 weeks ago. I would think at 3-1/2 months you could just quit cold turkey.

 

[dun]

No reason to taper them off. Just stop the feedings all together. Won;t take but a day or 2 and they'll think they've been weaned their whole life. Just remembert o keep giving it the grain for at least 6 months.

 

[novaman]

Agree with dun. I've trying tapering them off and it doesn't seem to work as well as simply quiting cold turkey. When you taper off it seems like your teasing them with a little and then they cry for more. If you quit the bottle the calf will forget about it much sooner. If she is eating 3 pounds of grain she is fine. Keep some grain and fresh water out for her and let her do as she wants.

 

[Lucky_P]

I weaned 'em - cold turkey - whenever they were eating 1.5-2 lbs of calf-starter ration, and upped the grain ration accordingly in short order. I'd cram a handful of starter ration in their mouth every time I fed or happened to pass the pen, and kept fresh starter in front of 'em at all times. Usually had 'em off the bottle by 4-6 weeks. Rarely had to feed more than one 40-lb bag of milk replacer per calf.
Milk replacer feeding is the most costly and time-consuming part of raising a bottle calf; I wanted 'em on feed as soon as possible. Never fed more than 2 qts of milk replacer twice a day, and I'd have never fed one for 3.5 months.

I'm sure I'll probably have to raise another beef calf on a bottle at some point, but I've never had but one that turned out worth a crap, and I'd be inclined to take any orphans/rejects straight on to the salebarn, but I don't suspect the wife'll go for that. In my hands, dairy calves do great; beef calves, not. But, I guess if I were feeding like you (I'm not picking on you.), maybe my bottle beef calves would have turned out better - but I doubt I'd have ever recouped the cost of the extra bags of milk replacer I'd have to have bought.