The Agriland Spring Calf Series is in association with Teagasc DairyBeef 500.
By Tommy Cox DairyBeef 500 advisor
Correct milk feeding of the dairy-beef calf from arrival on farm to weaning, is an important aspect of the calf-rearing phase to ensure desired levels of live weight gain are achieved.
However, just as important is the transitioning of calves from milk to solid feed as they move from a pre-ruminant to the ruminant phase.
Much of the skill in calf-rearing is making this dietary transition as smooth as possible, without set-backs to the calf’s performance.
Concentrate supplementation from early age
Making the move from a liquid diet to a solid feed diet can cause stress on calves.
To reduce the calf’s reliance on milk and help to reduce potential stress, concentrates should be introduced to calves from a few days-of-age, to encourage intake.
Concentrates should be made from high-quality ingredients, palatable and should be made available to calves as soon as they arrive on farm, and offered fresh daily.
Calf concentrate should contain 17-18% crude protein and have a high energy value. Finely ground, dusty feeds should be avoided as this will reduce intakes.
Calves fed coarse starter mix initially eat more and have higher weight gain and make the transition better.
Calves should only be weaned after they have been eating at least 1.5kg of starter concentrates or more, per day, for at least three consecutive days prior to weaning. Generally this level of intake should be obtained by eight weeks-of-age.
Forage supplementation
Forage supplementation is beneficial to aid with rumen development, but not near as fundamental as concentrates.
Calves need small amounts of roughage in order for the rumen to develop. Straw is an easier roughage feed for calves to digest and is preferred to hay.
A high intake of hay in young calves will decrease the intake of concentrates, and the calves will often develop ‘pot bellies’.
Avoid the over consumption of straw as this reduces the overall energy density of the diet and performance will be reduced.
Eliminating stress for the calf
Before weaning, calves should be healthy and not stressed; if there are any issues with them, the milk feeding should be prolonged.
Any stressful events such as castration, disbudding or vaccination should be avoided at this time as it will cause upsets and could potentially cause a growth check after weaning.
Abrupt or stepped weaning
Calves can be either abruptly or step weaned. Stepped weaning is when the amount of milk being fed and the number of feeds/day are gradually reduced over time.
This is also referred to as gradual weaning. Both step weaning and abrupt weaning can be performed successfully provided the calf’s rumen is adequately developed and sufficient levels of concentrates are been consumed.
Stepped weaning does reduce the stress at weaning and can avoid temporary setbacks in growth rate.
Generally, stepped or gradual weaning is achieved by reducing the volume of milk fed over a period of seven to 10 days. If calves are being fed milk twice a day, weaning can be achieved by cutting down to once a day feeding.
Preventing post-weaning growth check
The post-weaning growth check found in many calves is due to three factors.
Low intake of dry feed up until weaning, resulting in limited rumen development. This results in a growth check for about two weeks, while the rumen becomes accustomed to digesting significant quantities of dry feeds.
High intake of bulky roughage such as grass and hay. Calves are physically unable to eat enough roughage to sustain rapid growth weights with their small, developing rumen.
Calf stress when feeds are changed. Feeding concentrates before, during, and after weaning should limit the level of growth check. If a growth check does occur, the lost growing time will never be made up and it will take longer to attain target weights.
Calf care case study – Gareth Peoples
Dairybeef 500 farmer, Gareth Peoples, who farms full-time at Tullyannon, Carrigans, Co.Donegal where he operates a calf-to-steer beef system, is coming close to weaning his group of spring-born calves.
Approximately 85 calves were reared this year on the farm, a mix of autumn- and spring-born Holstein Friesian male calves, all of which are slaughtered as steers at approximately 24 months-of-age.
Calves arrive on the farm at approximately three weeks-of-age; calves are fed 750g of a 23% crude protein milk replacer twice daily from arrival until they are about five-weeks-old.
Once calves reach five-weeks-old, they are cut back to once-a-day (OAD) feed and from then on, the quantity of milk replacer fed will be reduced from here until weaning.
From five weeks, calves are fed 400g of milk replacer in 3L of water and are kept on that regime until they reach their targeted weaning weight of 90kg at generally 55-60 days.
From arrival, calves are introduced to a highly palatable coarse ration. The ration contains 19% crude protein and is made up of high-quality ingredients soya bean, barley, flaked maize, soya hulls, distillers and molasses,.
As well as that, it contains an acid buff and yeast to prevent any digestive upsets. Initially from Gareth’s experience calves can be slow to consume any significant levels of concentrates, but once they start, intakes increase rapidly especially when they are reduced to OAD milk-feeding.
He believes keeping the troughs clean and feed fresh from the start is important to get calves to start consuming reasonable levels.
Generally at weaning, calves would be consuming over 2kg of concentrates per day and they are kept on this level until turnout. Straw is used as a fibre source and calves have access to clean fresh water at all times.
When calves are let out to grass first, they are put out to stronger and ‘stemmy’ covers, just to have an extra bit of fibre and that the grass isn’t too lush in order to prevent any potential issues with summer scour.
Concentrate supplementation is continued for the first few weeks post-turnout and once calves get accustomed to the diet, concentrates are reduced and the quality of grass that they are grazing is improved.