Feeding silage to calves

Tommyj1

Hi lads,

Have been getting a lot of info from the site so decided to sign up. I am feeding hay to 2.5 month old calves, but it is starting to get scarce and expensive to buy. Would I be able to feed them silage. I have plenty of round bales.

All advice would be appreciated

Thnaks

1chippy

silage is getting scarce too. That will mean it is going to be expensive later on too. to answer your question though i dont see why not.

bob charles

don't feed calves hay, straw is best for their stomachs, hay only makes them pot bellied

Manoffeeling

Bob is right. Clean barley straw and meal is way better. Don't think about the costs now, if you skimp now, you will have screws.

Tommyj1

Thanks for the advice.

Went and got a few round bales of straw this evening. I'm new to rearing calves. What amount of meal should I be feeding them. They are getting about 1.5 kg of calf crunch each per day. Is this enough for them?

thanks

bob charles

Tommyj1 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice.

Went and got a few round bales of straw this evening. I'm new to rearing calves. What amount of meal should I be feeding them. They are getting about 1.5 kg of calf crunch each per day. Is this enough for them?

thanks

change over to the straw slowly, and they should be eating around 2 - 2.5% of there body weight in meal. So 100kilo calf eating just over 2kgs if getting nothing else but straw

PMU

are they out on grass as well? best thing for them at that age

bbam

Manoffeeling wrote: »

if you skimp now, you will have screws.

This is a great bit of advice...
Calves need feeding to grow their frame and develop.. all too often calves are neglected with the idea of feeding them on closer to sale time. By then its too late and you indeed have "screws".

At 2.5 months you should be thinking of getting them out to grass on a sheltered field.. We would have them on a field where they have free access to a straw bedded shed.. We also try to feed 1kg of beef nuts a day all the time.

The other great bit of advise was only make gradual changes to their diet, its quite a change for young stock to move from hay/meal to grass/meal or silage/meal. For a week before going out to grass we would cut some grass every evening and feed it along with the straw to get them ready.. the last thing you want at that age is a shock to their system that could start a nutritional scour, it could lead on to something more sinister. We found that any change is best made gradually over a week. Older stock can cope with changes better so its less of an issue.

We recently sold 2 HEX bulls, near 14 months old and they had an average live weight gain of .85KG/day which given the summer we were delighted with.

lakill Farm

i have for 3 years been feeding hay to the calves and it was only on wednesday a local farmer said he always gives them straw and meal. Im going to buy more straw this year and give them access to 1/2 hay and 1/2 straw.


What type straw should i be getting? for feeding and for bedding

vanderbadger

kept of a young pb ch bull i bred last year, I found he only really started to come on last winter when I put him on a straw and meal so there must be something to it

bbam

lakill Farm wrote: »

What type straw should i be getting? for feeding and for bedding

Personally, barley straw all the way.. Calves seem to love it, we find that if some calves are slow to start onto straw then some nice fresh hay mixed in helps...

Tommyj1

Starting mixing the straw and hay this evening. The calves are still in. I had planned to have them out by now but the weather has been that s**t. I think I will keep them in for another while. Hopefully the weather will pick up soon and I will get them out then. I will start to give them another 0.5 kg of meal each per day. They are thriving well at the minute.

Good loser

Don't worry about the weather. Put them out right away. Any grass plus meals is adequate.

ootbitb

bbam wrote: »

This is a great bit of advice...
Calves need feeding to grow their frame and develop.. all too often calves are neglected with the idea of feeding them on closer to sale time. By then its too late and you indeed have "screws".

At 2.5 months you should be thinking of getting them out to grass on a sheltered field.. We would have them on a field where they have free access to a straw bedded shed.. We also try to feed 1kg of beef nuts a day all the time.

The other great bit of advise was only make gradual changes to their diet, its quite a change for young stock to move from hay/meal to grass/meal or silage/meal. For a week before going out to grass we would cut some grass every evening and feed it along with the straw to get them ready.. the last thing you want at that age is a shock to their system that could start a nutritional scour, it could lead on to something more sinister. We found that any change is best made gradually over a week. Older stock can cope with changes better so its less of an issue.

We recently sold 2 HEX bulls, near 14 months old and they had an average live weight gain of .85KG/day which given the summer we were delighted with.

nice lwg so they were almost 400 kg at 14 months.

what did they get over the winter and when did you put them out?

Farmer Pudsey

there is two disvantages to hay one is that they will eat too much and not eat meal and the second is that they will get pot bellied because they will eat less meal.

However if I was buying watch out for the strong calf with a pot belly

sh1tstirrer

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

there is two disvantages to hay one is that they will eat too much and not eat meal and the second is that they will get pot bellied because they will eat less meal.

However if I was buying watch out for the strong calf with a pot belly

Are you saying that you would buy a strong calf with a pot belly as they will thrive with better feeding?

bbam

sh1tstirrer wrote: »

Are you saying that you would buy a strong calf with a pot belly as they will thrive with better feeding?

My understanding is this depends on the age. It seems that if they are left too long with this pot belly poor meal intake it affects their potential frame growth and they will always be small.
I've been often told "the calf you buy is the animal you sell" and to be honest I believe it more and more. Chap near us buys every screw that goes into the ring to "turn them round" between those that die and those that turn out average he's just burying money from his other profit making business.

Locally there are only two dairy men I'd buy calves off as they leave the calves on the cow for a few days. It's the making of a calf.

PatQfarmer

We bed with barley straw and have hay available to them at first, moving onto haylage/top quality silage. They eat at least as much straw as they do hay and we feed up to 2kg/head depending on age.
The most important thing is to get them out into sheltered paddock at first opportunity. All March calves were out in April and stayed out, with access to shed during worst of weather. They rarely came in!