Weaning

[ruffles]

Hi I have a young bull calf that was slated for put down because of ill knee and scours. Pulled him through both. Knee is still swollen but much better. He has been on antibiotics and an anti inflammatory for 16 days. When should I stop. Good appetite perky etc. He is now 4 months old. When do I wean him off milk.

 

[ruffles]

PS Thanks to you who gave me the site to find out about the navel / ill knee. Big help

 

[Alice]

Hi I have a young bull calf that was slated for put down because of ill knee and scours. Pulled him through both. Knee is still swollen but much better. He has been on antibiotics and an anti inflammatory for 16 days. When should I stop. Good appetite perky etc. He is now 4 months old. When do I wean him off milk.

Ask the vet about when to take him off the meds.

When that calf eats 2 pounds of calf feed per day...however, since he's had a rough go, I'd still supplement with a bottle of milk replacer once a day until he's up to more than 2 pounds a day.

Does this make sense...I've been outside and my brain cooked.

Alice

 

[Herefordcross]

My brain is cooked too, 108 here today with the humidity I'm not used to this crap, I need a few days in Alaska or something.

 

[msscamp]

He has been on antibiotics and an anti inflammatory for 16 days. When should I stop.

This is a question for your vet.

Good appetite perky etc. He is now 4 months old. When do I wean him off milk.

At 4 months old, I would start cutting down his milk to encourage him to eat more solid food. If you are feeding him the traditional 1 gallon/day, then cut him down to 3/4's of a gallon and watch his solid food intake. When it raises an appreciable amount, cut him down to 1/2 gallon. Keep doing that as his solid food intake increases. Something to keep in mind is that this calf has been on antibiotics for better than 3 weeks and antibiotics are not discriminatory about what bacteria they destroy. For that reason I would give him a dose of Probios before I started cutting down his milk and continue to dose him with Probios up to a few days after the antibiotics were discontinued to get the flora in his gut back up to snuff.

 

[ruffles]

Thanks for the information on weaning and on the probios. I am very green here what is it? Like a natural yogurt type of thing?
He is on about 1 1/2 gallons a day milk. He is grazing easily to 2lbs of wild grasses> should I supplement with hay. What do you call calf feed is it like a chop mixture?

 

[msscamp]

Thanks for the information on weaning and on the probios. I am very green here what is it? Like a natural yogurt type of thing?
He is on about 1 1/2 gallons a day milk. He is grazing easily to 2lbs of wild grasses> should I supplement with hay. What do you call calf feed is it like a chop mixture?

Probios is like yogurt - it simply replenishes the good flora that allows him to digest his food and extract nutrition from that food - except you buy it from your vet instead of the grocery store. The live cultures in yogurt will probably do the same thing, though, so if you want to go that route more power to you! Calf starter (aka 'solid food') is a bagged feed available from your feed store, TSC, The Mercantile, and various other places as well. It is simply a mixture of a few different types of grain (usually squashed corn, oats, and barley), milk replacer pellets, all of which is coated with molasses to enhance the pallatibility and help ensure the calf eats it. It provides vitamins, protein, etc, that the calf needs to grow and stay healthy. You could also feed a C.O.B. mixture if you would like. C.O.B. stands for corn, oats, and barley - and it is also coated with molasses. If he is on pasture I would not supplement with hay. The grass is better and cheaper, so I would just let him graze as much as possible until winter gets here, then I would provide hay - grass to start out with, gradually introducing him to alfalfa because alfalfa has a higher protein content, usually - but I'm sure you already knew that.

 

[mnmtranching]

ruffles, I for one applaud you for saving the calf. No need to feed hay if you got grass. I would work at getting him up to 3,4 pounds of grain per day to go with the grass. Why not?
A balanced creep ration would do fine. At about 8 or 9 $ per hundred it would add pounds to your calf. Good 5 hundred weight calves sell for 120 to 150 per hundred. Cut back on the milk replacer as he adjusts to the feed.

mnmt

 

[msscamp]

ruffles, I for one applaud you for saving the calf. No need to feed hay if you got grass. I would work at getting him up to 3,4 pounds of grain per day to go with the grass. Why not?
mnmt

I see no reason not to, provided it's done slowly as you suggested. Good point on saving the calf, too, thanks! Sorry for overlooking that, ruffles, good job!