Weaning a bottle calf

[jode]

Hey all, I am sure this has been answered before, but I figured I would share a success story about a bottle calf and ask away:

On May 23, we bought a little 50% Angus, 25% Hereford, 25% Holstein bottle calf that was supposedly approx 10 days old. He was been doing great on 2X day bottles and he has recently really started putting on weight with sweet feed and pasture. Are there any hard and fast rules about getting him weaned and how soon we can do it?

This picture is from May 25th, but appears to be the best one I have of him:

[Oakshire_Farm]

Cut him down to one bottle a day, then start diluting down his milk, gradually they loose interest. I give mine a big tub of grain, they generaly start showing more enthusiasm for the grain and that is when I cut them back to one milk feeding/day.

My Jersey heifer weaned her self at 9 weeks! She prefers grain! One thing to keep a close eye on is that he is getting enough water! You may want to put some electrolites in with his milk just to make sure he is getting enough! The heat can dehydrate a calf very fast!

[Ronney]

7 weeks~ opinions?

Go to this thread. It works well for at least two of us and is easy on both the calves and your ears.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[travlnusa]

My rule is 3 lbs of starter for 3 days in a row, then wean them.

[Cheryl aka JM]

Thanks for that advice BTW Ronney. I'm doing that now~ got them down to 1 qt in morning and 1 1/2 in the evening right now. I'm putting out about 9-10 pounds of calf starter morning and evening and they are cleaning it up (I locked them in the barn with it last night so I could see that THEY were eating it all up not the chickens and they are!) I actually think they are probably ready to wean now~ they are looking fatter (I'll get pics later)~ eating the starter good~ seem happy to have the starter and only get excited about the idea of a bucket when they see me get the leads out to take them to the buckets. And frankly~ I'm getting pretty tired of this chore! BUT~ I still have most of a bag of MR so I'm gonna finish it out before I wean and that way I can be sure it's past time to do it.

Thanks so much!

[Ronney]

There you go Jode, it's worked for Cheryl too but you will have to make your own mind up about how you go about it.

Cheryl, I know you went to hell and back with these calves which was most unfortunate because it's not always like that but you can now look at them with the satisfaction of a job well done. While they might have looked a bit thin in the last photos, they were also sleek and shiny and illthrifty calves do not look sleek as these ones of yours do. I know exactly how you feel about feeding them - I love rearing calves but by the time they're weaned I've had enough of them and am glad to see the backside of milk and calfaterias. I like the respite until the next lot come along.

If you don't finish the MR before weaning and you have room in the freezer, seal the bag as best you can and drop it into the freezer. This is presuming you might want to go down the calf rearing track again. It's too expensive to feed for the sake of feeding.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[Cheryl aka JM]

I'll get a new pic of them today and post it on the other thread~ see if y'all think the pasture has put enough extra weight on them to cut them off the buckets or not just yet. They are eating more of the starter than I've read they need to be at weaning, and I think they are looking considerably fatter than the last pics already! .......but I've put too much work into them to risk messing it up now just to save another week or twos work!

[jode]

OK - thanks all. I'm not sure he's eating enough grain, but it seems like he is eating more and more each day. I'll start monitoring his consumption a bit closer and looking towards starting to cut the milk.

[RoyalValley]

I was wondering this same question. I have an angus calf who's mom died after she got stuck in a pond for 24 hours and never recovered. The rancher just gave him to us.

They banded him before he came to ur house and is on 2 bottles w/ 2 qts. per day. What is the calf grain and how is it different than sweet mix?

He's almost 3 months old now and I'm ready to wean him, but he's hasn't really grown much in the month that we have had him. Should I be concerned?