Feeding meal to calves from birth to finish.

Who2

I’ve been looking at different lads feeding regimes and there seems to be huge variations with the amounts and timing of feeding.
I would have always just creep fed for a month or so pre weaning with whatever 16% ration I chose that year. Autumn born calves would go on 2kg the whole winter and usually moved on at good weight for age( cows get no meal) .
It got me thinking and I am currently feeding the young calves some meal while inside. They aren’t eating a whole pile but it is increasing in quantity as the days go on. Are there any farmers feeding meal straight throughout the year with creep feeders out from the start. Aiming for a young finish .

funkey_monkey

For spring calving, I'm not sure if there is any real benefit to starting them early on meal. If you have heifers or a average cow, you'd get better value putting some dairy nuts into them to get the milk going - whatever minerals are in the nuts would make its way into the milk. If you want, you could start getting them used to the ration with a creep before housing.

Autumn born calves - I'll not comment there as I've not worked with them.

Hard Knocks

Who2 wrote: »

I’ve been looking at different lads feeding regimes and there seems to be huge variations with the amounts and timing of feeding.
I would have always just creep fed for a month or so pre weaning with whatever 16% ration I chose that year. Autumn born calves would go on 2kg the whole winter and usually moved on at good weight for age( cows get no meal) .
It got me thinking and I am currently feeding the young calves some meal while inside. They aren’t eating a whole pile but it is increasing in quantity as the days go on. Are there any farmers feeding meal straight throughout the year with creep feeders out from the start. Aiming for a young finish .

I’m throwing a handful in the trough just to give a taste, last year I tried leader follower with high wire & trough
Meal wasn’t touched till August
If they’ve lots of grass & milk they’ll not touch the meal

TooOldBoots

Waste of money for young suck calves in spring, just keep plenty grass in front of the cow and calf till autumn.
Bucket reared calves is another story, you'd have to be giving them meal as they would be getting no milk.
If you feel you must spend your money then a bag of fertilizer will give a better return during the summer

Hard Knocks

TooOldBoots wrote: »

Waste of money for young suck calves in spring, just keep plenty grass in front of the cow and calf till autumn.
Bucket reared calves is another story, you'd have to be giving them meal as they would be getting no milk.
If you feel you must spend your money then a bag of fertilizer will give a better return during the summer

Agree on the fertilizer
Giving a handful in a trough when in the shed before the hit grass helps train them for when you start in August
They’ll train the rest
Nothing worse than trying to get a batch of strong calves to a trough
Every little help counts

Bass Reeves

Who2 wrote: »

I’ve been looking at different lads feeding regimes and there seems to be huge variations with the amounts and timing of feeding.
I would have always just creep fed for a month or so pre weaning with whatever 16% ration I chose that year. Autumn born calves would go on 2kg the whole winter and usually moved on at good weight for age( cows get no meal) .
It got me thinking and I am currently feeding the young calves some meal while inside. They aren’t eating a whole pile but it is increasing in quantity as the days go on. Are there any farmers feeding meal straight throughout the year with creep feeders out from the start. Aiming for a young finish .

Feeding meal to cattle at present is break even at best. Feeding calves for early finish would leave you only turning money at best. I paid 270/ ton for last load of ration. It's supposed to be gone up again. A lad I know feeding a few young bulls with some magic mushroom mix up s paying 380/ton. Admittedly it in bags and a nut. Factor pulled steer price back to 3.70-3.75/kg. U24 R grade bulls are at 3.7/kg and the base for young bulls is 3.65/kg.

At present ration prices and beef prices any lad feeding ration is losing money. You would need all cattle to grade to the max of there breeds and good weight gain to break even. For any lad feeding numbers unless he has a huge margin on them coming into shed he will have only broke even this year. Of course we might have another Beam or exceptional aid measure but for any lad with numbers even if he broke even it 10k max......and rightly so.