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Introduction

In this section, we will begin with calves. And we are talking about feeding the animal for the first 12 weeks of life. In an overview, the majority of mortality in heifers occurs during the first 3 months. A high quality diet is a must and high quality also infers high cost. These calves are prone to health problems particularly digestive upsets. They are very labor intensive, but they do give you quick feedback on the feeding program.

So in the first 3 months, this is characterized as the period of maximum risk and also maximum cost.

Our weight goals at the end of this are about 200-250 lbs for Holstein calves or other large breed dairy animals such as Brown Swiss. Holsteins would have an average birth weight of about 85-90 lbs, so that means their average daily gain must be 1.2 – 1.8 lbs to wean these animals at 200-250 lbs. Jerseys have a birth weight of 50-55 lbs, our 3 month goal is a weaning weight of 130-160 and so our average daily gain must be .8-1.2 lbs per day. Now intermediate size breeds such as Ayrshires, Guernseys and Shorthorns would fall between Holsteins and Jerseys. We would also like to raise these animals as economically as possible so this means losing very few animals, low mortality, low morbidity, wean as early as possible and feed economical feeds throughout these 3 months.

I have outlined five components for success; one is dry cow nutrition; two is calving environment; three is colostrum management; four is feeding or choosing feedstuffs for the pre-weaned calf; and five is transition management. We are mainly going to focus on three and four, we will briefly mention one and two but these are imperative to success in colostrum management and feeding the pre-weaned calf.

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