weaning bottle calf

[TMRwife]

We have our first bottle calf this year - he is now 7 weeks old. He is eating a little hay. Have offered him some manna - he doesn't really eat much of that. What is the best way to wean him?

 

[hillsdown]

Get him eating at least 2 pounds of 18% calf starter ration a day, eating good leafy hay for at least a week. I would then gradually cut back on his milk by a pint every 2-3 days until he is completely off milk. Then make sure he has free choice fresh water , hay always and make sure he has free choice calf starter until he is around 6 months old. Then you can treat him like his weened contemporaries.

 

[larryshoat]

Get him eating at least 2 pounds of 18% calf starter ration a day, eating good leafy hay for at least a week. I would then gradually cut back on his milk by a pint every 2-3 days until he is completely off milk. Then make sure he has free choice fresh water , hay always and make sure he has free choice calf starter until he is around 6 months old. Then you can treat him like his weened contemporaries.

That'll work :tiphat: .

Larry

 

[novaman]

Not arguing with what HD said as she has plenty of experience in this department I'm sure. I, however, do not feed hay to calves until several weeks after the calf is weaned. The rumen has little capacity so I think it imperative to get them on starter as much as they can eat. They need that high energy feed to overcome this period of stress and change. I've heard lots of people feed hay. It seems like a good practice but they just aren't physically ready for it.

 

[msscamp]

I agree with Hillsdown with a couple of exceptions - I would not give my bottle calf free choice hay or free choice grain. Reason being is this - calves need the hay to help get their rumen functioning, but free choice hay tends to cut down on the amount of grain/calf starter that they eat and they need the protein/energy of the grain a lot more in order to develop and grow properly. Too much hay also tends to lead to a pot-bellied appearance. Free choice grain can cause some rather nasty illnesses, founder, or even kill the calf if you happen to have a grain hog. Another problem with free choice anything is that they tend to eat the better parts and waste a lot more than if they are given a set amount. I'm not a big believer in free choice anything, for any animal though, so I guess my prejudices are showing. I believe it is far better to work out a well formulated diet based on the calves weight and nutrition requirements, and adjust as necessary.

 

[hillsdown]

Calves do not have the capacity to over eat at that age,,, it is a proven fact.
Nova we tried it that way for a few months and I went back to my "basket method" with better results.

You make a nest of really really good leafy hay (we usually used 3rd cut small squares) and fill it with the best quality calf starter ration we could get ,, at least 18%.

 

[Lucky_P]

I always kept FRESH high-quality calf-starter ration available to bottle calves from Day One, and every time I fed - and every time I happened to pass by the pen - I'd cram a handful of feed into their mouths to get 'em used to eating it.
When they were consuming between 1.5 and 2 lbs of feed per day, I just quit feeding the bottle - cold turkey - sometimes I could do this by the time they were 4 weeks old, and almost always before 6 weeks of age. Always kept fresh water available.
Milk replacer feeding is the most costly and time-consuming part of raising those things, and the sooner I could get 'em off the bottle, the less they cost me, both in $$ and time.
Increased their grain ration rapidly to about 5 lb/day in fairly short order. There's enough fiber in most calf-starter rations to get rumen development started, and I never fed any hay until they were at least a couple of months old - filling 'em up with hay just makes 'em pot-bellied - as has already been mentioned, they can't extract much from hay at this stage, and they really need the energy and protein present in that grain ration to build bone/muscle and drive their immune systems; but I would turn 'em out in group pens once they were weaned and eating well - grazing green grass helps accelerate rumen development, but I still considered the grain ration as their primary source of nutrition until they were around 5-6 months of age.

 

[novaman]

There's enough fiber in most calf-starter rations to get rumen development started.

It is my understanding that fiber is no longer believed to stimulate rumen development as much as the production of VFA's produced from the fermentation of grain,hay, etc.

 

[Lucky_P]

Yep. I 'spect you're right about the VFAs, and the relative lack of importance of fiber length for initiating rumen development. I'm not a nutritionist, and have got *maybe* just enough knowledge of rumen physiology to be dangerous.
Good point novaman. Thanks.

 

[hillsdown]

I guess everyone has different management practices. I have never ever raised a pot bellied calf and the calves were our future milking herd so they were given alot of TLC .Not to mention that we sold replacement heifers to people all over North America. BUT the calves were never weened before they were 3 months old and were never fed milk replacer. They only were given real cows milk, fresh at each milking. After they were weened they received the same TMR the milking herd received, except their's had calf starter in it as well.

Speaking of bottle babies, my balancer heifer, Stormy, that I raised a few years ago is in heat today. AI'ing her tonight. Need to decide on a bull still ...