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weaning bottle calf
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<blockquote data-quote="Lucky_P" data-source="post: 754235" data-attributes="member: 12607"><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. </p><p>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.</p><p>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 $$ and time.</p><p>Increased their grain ration rapidly to about 5 lb/day in fairly short order. There's enough fiber in most calf-starter rations to get rumen development started, and I never fed any hay until they were at least a couple of months old - filling 'em up with hay just makes 'em pot-bellied - as has already been mentioned, they can't extract much from hay at this stage, and they really need the energy and protein present in that grain ration to build bone/muscle and drive their immune systems; but I would turn 'em out in group pens once they were weaned and eating well - grazing green grass helps accelerate rumen development, but I still considered the grain ration as their primary source of nutrition until they were around 5-6 months of age.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lucky_P, post: 754235, member: 12607"] I always kept FRESH high-quality calf-starter ration available to bottle calves from Day One, and every time I fed - and every time I happened to pass by the pen - I'd cram a handful of feed into their mouths to get 'em used to eating it. When they were consuming between 1.5 and 2 lbs of feed per day, I just quit feeding the bottle - cold turkey - sometimes I could do this by the time they were 4 weeks old, and almost always before 6 weeks of age. Always kept fresh water available. Milk replacer feeding is the most costly and time-consuming part of raising those things, and the sooner I could get 'em off the bottle, the less they cost me, both in $$ 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. [/QUOTE]
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