|
Columbia City, Indiana | What's your ration for the weaned calves? I've seen stuff that said not to free choice hay in the first couple of weeks because that's all some of them will eat and they won't get enough nutrients from it if it's grass hay or similar quality. The ration OSU pushed was 2/3 rolled corn with cottonseed hulls and soybean meal, along with vit and min, until they are eating 4-5 # per head per day, which they say will take about 2 weeks. This is extremely early, 6-8 week old calves, weaning though. Then they want you to decrease the corn and increase the cottonseed hulls until you see the first sign of scours, then decrease the corn and bean meal and increase the hulls to 1/3 of the ration until normal weaning time.
That seems more complicated than I would want to mess with. My thought was first to wean more at 90 to 120 days of age, and start them out on just calf starter for a couple of weeks, then switch to a 16% complete pellet, then eventually start blending shelled corn with the pellets as they begin to eat more and more. Would probably free choice grass hay also once they're eating well.
Just seems to me (and I know this isn't feasible for large operations) if I have enough grass for 20 cows with normal rainfall, maybe I could push that number up towards 30 with early weaning. And I'd end up with 5-10 more calves. | |
|
effects of Early weaning
