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Breeding / Calving Issues
weaning bucket calf
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<blockquote data-quote="Lucky_P" data-source="post: 675386" data-attributes="member: 12607"><p>I've raised a few beef calves on a bottle through the years, but they never seem to grow off nearly as well as dairy calves, and certainly not as good as a calf on pasture with his mama - and I'm not sure they've returned enough $$ to pay for the milk replacer and feed; probably would have come out ahead to take 'em to the salebarn and sell 'em as baby calves. </p><p>But, anyway, I handle 'em just like I do dairy calves - when they're consuming about 1.5-2.0 lbs of calf starter ration per day, you just stop the bottle/bucket, and up their grain ration. Usually, I've been able to wean somewhere between 4 and 6 weeks of age - the younger the better, because milk replacer feeding is the most costly and labor-intensive part of hand-raising calves.</p><p>Current recommendations for developing dairy heifers is no hay feeding before about 8 weeks, but free-choice access to all the good quality calf starter ration they can consume, up to 5-6#/day. Once they're weaned, I kick 'em out into a lot so they can graze, but they still get grain until 4-5 months of age, at which time they should have sufficient rumen development to grow well if pasture forages are high quality.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lucky_P, post: 675386, member: 12607"] I've raised a few beef calves on a bottle through the years, but they never seem to grow off nearly as well as dairy calves, and certainly not as good as a calf on pasture with his mama - and I'm not sure they've returned enough $$ to pay for the milk replacer and feed; probably would have come out ahead to take 'em to the salebarn and sell 'em as baby calves. But, anyway, I handle 'em just like I do dairy calves - when they're consuming about 1.5-2.0 lbs of calf starter ration per day, you just stop the bottle/bucket, and up their grain ration. Usually, I've been able to wean somewhere between 4 and 6 weeks of age - the younger the better, because milk replacer feeding is the most costly and labor-intensive part of hand-raising calves. Current recommendations for developing dairy heifers is no hay feeding before about 8 weeks, but free-choice access to all the good quality calf starter ration they can consume, up to 5-6#/day. Once they're weaned, I kick 'em out into a lot so they can graze, but they still get grain until 4-5 months of age, at which time they should have sufficient rumen development to grow well if pasture forages are high quality. [/QUOTE]
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