suck calves

marknjb

well lads, I am just after buying 12 suck calves and I was wondering what age to wean them at. They are aged between 4 and 8 weeks old and are on milk replacer, calf nuts and on grass. Thanks marknjb

Reggie.

marknjb wrote: »

well lads, I am just after buying 12 suck calves and I was wondering what age to wean them at. They are aged between 4 and 8 weeks old and are on milk replacer, calf nuts and on grass. Thanks marknjb

As soon as they are eating 1kg of meal each you can wean them off. It can happen anytime from 10 weeks on. I usually wean them between 10 to 12 weeks old tho.

Sam Kade

Reggie. wrote: »

As soon as they are eating 1kg of meal each you can wean them off. It can happen anytime from 10 weeks on. I usually wean them between 10 to 12 weeks old tho.

That's a lot of milk replacer :eek: I wean them at 6 weeks.

Greengrass1

Sam Kade wrote: »

That's a lot of milk replacer :eek: I wean them at 6 weeks.

:eek: :eek: 6 wks old is far to young no calf weaned here unless it's 90 kg plus and eating a kg. Thats usually 10 wks old. Later cakves need to be at 100 to catch up on the earlier ones

Reggie.

Sam Kade wrote: »

That's a lot of milk replacer :eek: I wean them at 6 weeks.

That's far too young imo. It's a bag a week here so about 10 bags does me. I don't spare it going in as the calves need the kick start

Base price

Depending on condition we try to get them on OAD normally around 3 weeks old. I know of dairy farmers who would have their heifer replacements on oad at 10 days.

Sam Kade

Greengrass1 wrote: »

:eek: :eek: 6 wks old is far to young no calf weaned here unless it's 90 kg plus and eating a kg. Thats usually 10 wks old. Later cakves need to be at 100 to catch up on the earlier ones

30 years ago 5 weeks was the target, the idea was to get them off expensive milk and onto cheaper ration. A lot of the milk replace nowadays is to keep them alive until they are eating solids.

trixi2011

Had a retired high input dairy farmer rearing our calves this year and all calves were weaned at 6/8 weeks of age was very dubious of this method but amazed by how well the calves have grown since weaning before turning the calves out to grass they were eating 3/4 kg of meal a head , on grass now and they are flying it and have no setback at all

dzer2

Wean here at 8 weeks but calves would be eating 4 kgs a day

Good loser

trixi2011 wrote: »

Had a retired high input dairy farmer rearing our calves this year and all calves were weaned at 6/8 weeks of age was very dubious of this method but amazed by how well the calves have grown since weaning before turning the calves out to grass they were eating 3/4 kg of meal a head , on grass now and they are flying it and have no setback at all

Would agree with that. Have done 40+ calves for many years and always feed oad from mart, including day of arrival.