So far so good

[california cowgirl]

Yes NAVEL infections can kill so squeeze out the puss and flush the hole with hydrogen peroxide and antibiotics for sure. Cause once the bacteria gets up in their body it can manifest into their joints or somewhere else and later on cause problems or death. WE have had that happen more than once. They can die months later our vet from the state vet school told us that. So that is a very important one since they have NO IMMUNE system at all.

 

[WildRoseBeef]

I have the vet coming to check them out on Friday. The herd that they came from was a dairy Jersey herd that was grass only and the cows and calves were in great condition. We are a little concerned that the smaller brown one, although he looks okay might have an infection in his navel. We will have the vet check out the spotted cow as well and make suggestions as far as what we should do.

The small brown cow has great conditioning just with grass and milk right now. The other has not figured out how to eat the grass and hay and so isn't in as good condition.

I know that grass fed can be done with dairy cows as long as you have good pasture. The adds are full of heifers and bull calves that are raised on grass alone and most of them are dairy bred Jerseys and Holsteins. We have 12 acres of excellent pasture so we will be able to rotate them and give them good quality feed. I don't mind using grain as a supplement on top of hay as we aren't selling the beef as grass fed beef we are just growing for ourselves, but I would like the majority of their diet to be grass and hay. They will be healthier and in the long run the meat will be healthier for us to eat.

This is a dairy herd = milk production, not meat production. There's a big difference there. You want to try to raise meat, don't go the same route you got this dairy herd from. Your grass may very likely be different from theirs, with different nutrition value, which may affect (as if it isn't already) the health of your calves.

You want meat, NOT milk. You will be very disappointed when your "healthier" meat product will end up being the toughest, worse-tasting beef you've ever had in your life. If you want to find that out the hard way, so be it. But all of us on here are trying to get you to understand that dairy cattle are not beef cattle: they are not built like them, they don't grow out like them. Period.

Look, we want to help you as much as possible to raise your calves as best as possible so that you end up with some very good, tasty and still healthy freezer beef. But we can't teach if you won't learn.

We also understand that you want a healthy product and feedstuffs that is healthy for your animals. BUT, are you willing to compromise this "health" rut you've got yourself stuck in for quality? To me it sounds like you are, and that's not exactly a good thing. If you want beef from these calves that are a) healthy AND b) good to eat, you really must consider graining them. Otherwise you're going to have to sell them for some beefers, or force-feed yourself some beef that is healthy but poor quality. Or have to contend with some thin calves.

Again, I can't stress enough the difference in nutritional requirements between raising an animal for milk or for beef. Jerseys are dairy cattle, they are genetically selected to be thinner than their beef counterparts (like Angus and Hereford) and produce large amounts of milk whilst being at a poor body condition score of 3 to 4 out of a score of 9 (1 being the most emaciated). When you want to raise a bovine for beef, you have to have MEAT on the bones. In order to do that the animal had better have the genetics for putting muscle/fat on when on pasture (which Jerseys are incapable of), or else you will have to grain it like crazy (whether these calves come from a grass-fed operation or not is irrelevant here!!) in order to put some fat and flesh on their frames.

What I'm trying to put out there and I think you are interpreting it wrong is that these calves do not have to be on a 100% grain diet. These calves can still be on grass, BUT if you want tender beef, supplement with grain. Don't think that we're implicating you feed them up like beef cattle in a CAFO feedlot!!!!!! PLEASE do not think that!! Because we are not implicating, mentioning nor encouraging such a thing!! All of us know that cattle in a feedlot environment are not healthy animals and the beef is not healthy coming off such carcasses, we know that. What we're saying is that there is nothing wrong--and nothing unhealthy, at all--about supplementing cattle with grain when it's necessary. And right now, until you put those calves-turned-steers to the knife, it's very necessary. Please, do not take this as a interpretation that these calves shouldn't be on grass for all their short lives; they should, but do yourself and your palate a favor by supplementing with grain or a similar supplemental feed.

California cowgirl is absolutely correct that these calves can't be put on grass alone at this age. They are too young, their rumens are too underdeveloped to be on such a harsh diet, so they need their milk, on a daily basis, until they are around 3 to 4 months of age. I've seen this personally, as I am studying Animal Science specializing in cattle production at a university in the location I've posted, the digestive system of a calf, and there is literally almost no rumen when a calf is born. The abomasum (true stomach) is the largest organ of the stomach chambers from when the calf is born until a month or so prior to the predicted time that a calf has a fully functional rumen. Grain is one of the important feedstuffs that encourage rumen development and function, grass is second to that. Milk is minor to that, but is still very essential to the calf at this age.

I hope you understand.

 

[purplequeenvt]

Ok......We raise several DAIRY breed steers every year on NO grain. They grow just fine. They will never be as large and meaty as a beef breed, but they still get big enough. The meat has NEVER been tough or gross. We have sold our beef to many people and no one has ever complained....in fact, they have all really liked it.

ChickenLittle is asking for help and NOT to be told that she is doing everything wrong. She has said several times that she doesn't want to feed grain, but is willing to if it becomes necessary.

California Cowgirl is right about the soy in the milk replacers. Nasty stuff. We fed a small bag to one of our calves this year before switching to our normal MR and he did really poorly on it. Perked up right away after switching.

ChickenLittle...your boys look good. Typical 2 week old Jersey calves. If you have any concern of navel infection, definitely get the vet to look at it. Sooner rather than later. The calves will start nibbling on stuff, but won't really start eating it for a while. It often takes a while for them to figure out water. My newest calf, a Holstein bull, was drinking water at 5 days, never had that happen before. Feel free to PM me if you have more questions.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

X2

 

[WildRoseBeef]

Ok......We raise several DAIRY breed steers every year on NO grain. They grow just fine. They will never be as large and meaty as a beef breed, but they still get big enough. The meat has NEVER been tough or gross. We have sold our beef to many people and no one has ever complained....in fact, they have all really liked it.

ChickenLittle is asking for help and NOT to be told that she is doing everything wrong. She has said several times that she doesn't want to feed grain, but is willing to if it becomes necessary.

My replies are not telling her that she is "doing everything wrong." Merely giving my recommendations to helping her achieve the best quality meat she can get is all I'm doing. It just seemed like she didn't understand hence I had to further clarify my position. Whether she chooses to follow such recommendations is up to her. I have no control over her decisions. I can only influence.

Different locations give different results. Where you might be able to raise such animals on grass alone is not ideal for others on this forum that are not in your state or location. There are folks on here that have tried raising dairy calves on grass alone and have found them to loose weight on it, including me. That's my basis for the "arguments" that I have made on my position, and what I'm going to stick to.

If CL can raise these calves on grass without any problems like you have been able to do, then I hope for the best and wish her luck. She may end up having better success than I have initially thought.

CL, don't take my posts as a means to offend you and chase you away from BYH. That was never my intention. I would, though (and I think I can speak for everyone else), like to see pictures of those two stinkin'-cute little calves as they grow up, it would be nice to see their progress from 2 week old calves to older animals.

 

[Bossroo]

I am with Wild Rose on this... location, location, location... on my 20 acre ranch in Cal. , we have green grass from Dec.- April, as this is the only time that one gets raindrops, then it goes dormant , turns brown and has virtually NO nutrition value ( They don't call Cal the "golden State" for nothing). If I relied on my pastures only as the only feed for a dairy type animal, ( or any type of farm animal) the buzzards would be enjoying a feast. My neighbor ( one mile from my ranch) raises beef cattle on 5,000 acres takes advantage of the green grass when it is there, then he trucks in 15 truck plus trailer loaded down with 110 lb. bales of alfalfa hay, plus another 6 truck plus trailer loads of bulk grain to feed the calves to finish market weight the rest of the year. The mature beef cows eat this brown grass plus a little of the alfalfa hay but they only subsist on it. A dairy cow would be a walking skeleton if not a skeleton by Sept. if kept on this type of pasture . Another example, just how is one to feed any cow in the High Sierra Nevada Mountains ( just 10 miles away from my ranch) when it is under 10 feet of snow without bringing in all of their feed in the winter time ?

 

[jhm47]

WRB and Bossroo: Appears to me that some people just need to make their mistakes and learn from them like we did in years past.

 

[ChickenLittle]

Okay guys sorry I haven't posted to anything in a few days but boy has it been busy. The vet was out today, primarily to see one the horses who has a horrible case of bronchitis due to heaves but she said she would look at the boys too while she was there. Both of them have put on weight since Tuesday when I posted this originally with us upping their milk replacer to 3 quarts.

WildRoseBeef~ I don't take offense at anything you are telling me and I cherish all the different viewpoints because I am very new at this. I can only go by what I have been told and what I have seen. The lady I bought the cows from runs an organic operation and so feeds only bulk tank milk and then grass and hay to her cows which are all Jerseys. The adults do not look bony or underweight by any means. Then again where we live we have grass that is usually lush and green from March or April until November maybe even sometimes December so as long as there is enough pasture the cows eat well here. Many of the farmers do advertise grass fed babies ad 3 or 4 months old.

I originally chose Jerseys for meat for two reasons really. 1. My vet recommended it. She raises Jerseys for meat herself and says that the marbling and flavor of the meat rivals even the beef cows. The second reason is that I really don't want a huge beef cow. I am feeding only 3 people here and my sister is only feeding 5 so we really don't need 600-700 pounds of meat all at once. Jerseys giving less meat actually fits us better than a larger cow.

The milk replacer I got was whole milk replacer so no worries about soy there. I asked before we picked the cows up and did follow advice from this forum in picking out my replacer. I also got the replacer that is medicated so that they would be protected from getting sick while they are young.

As far as the grain goes I am unwilling to feed grain in the way that I have read on the internet you are supposed to grain them. It doesn't make sense to me to give 5 to 10 pounds of grain a day per calf which is what a lot of the calf raising websites will tell you to do. A small scoop each in the evening to get things going is not a problem as far as I'm concerned if they need it to get their stomach working. I have no problem with grain as long as it's a good wholesome grain and contains no animal byproducts or unnecessary things. I feed grain to my other animals (chickens, sheep, goats, ducks) but for most of the day they are free ranging and eating whatever we have available on the property.

So when the vet came today she checked both boys over thoroughly and said she thought that they looked good. (Like I said above the hollows had filled in on the spotted calf almost completely and if anything he had grown taller and the other calf still looked as good as he did in the pictures.) She checked their navels and they were both fine and also rechecked them from when they had their castration and dehorning done to make sure those were okay as well. She did take a fecal sample to check for worms from both just to be on the safe side but she said that they looked good and were playful and happy like calves should be. She said we did the right thing by starting them at 2 quarts and then taking them up to 3 quarts after we had them for a week. She also said she would recommend grain as a supplement in small quantities to help get their rumen started but that it was okay to give them grain in the beginning and then to not give it as much once they are eating the grass and hay well without problems. We also talked about our hay quality and grass quality and rotational grazing so we can make the most out of the land we have them on. I did get a bag of grain for them. The vet recommended 16% protein livestock feed for them. It's a course feed rather than a pellet and we gave them each a small scoop of it this evening after their milk. They licked at it right away after I showed them it so that was good.

I am going to have to get more pictures this weekend when I am not holding both cows. We let them out after the vet was done and they have a large pole in the center of their pasture that was a satellite but now it holds a Jolly ball for them to play with. They ran up and took turns batting it around with their head which was so funny. If I can get a picture of them playing with it I will post it but definitely some new baby pictures. They actually found a pear tree we didn't know existed in the pasture and were trying to eat the wild pears ( about golf ball sized) with one of the sheep babies we have in the same pasture. Once we figured out that they were trying to eat them we picked up all the drops just to be safe. We didn't want them to scour because they were eating too much fruit.

Thank you everyone for your advice. I will definitely keep you posted.

 

[WildRoseBeef]

I agree five to ten pounds a day does sound a bit much, especially for those little guys. That's got to be at least 5 to 10% of their bodyweight, way too much for them to consume at one time--you're not raising veal calves, and it seems to me that that's about as much as what you'd feed to a veal calf that's not out and about like your calves are. Two to three lbs a day (or 1% of their bodyweight) is sufficient, and you can consider increasing the ration as they get bigger. If I were you wouldn't be feeding 5 lbs of grain a day until they're around 8 months old.

A word about grain: You can get straight grain without all the additives (i.e., just what it says on the feed label, not these fancy names like "calf-starter" or "dairy calf ration") and can choose between whole or milled grain. Milled grain, like cracked or dry-/steam-rolled corn for instance, doesn't have any additives, it's just that the corn kernels have been either chopped up, or flattened out like tiny pancakes (hulls/skins attached) so that they can be more efficiently digested. Whole corn, wheat, barley, rye and oats will go through a ruminant (multi-chambered stomachs) animal like a ball down a straight pipe and won't really do anything for it because the rumen microbes (this is for mature cattle, be a little different for your calves) can't and don't have enough time to break through the tough exterior. Milling increases digestibility because the starch is more readily accessible to the rumen microbes to break down and use for energy, protein, and other nutrients needed to feed the cow. Now with your calves, whole grain will do the same thing like it does for us humans (since young calves have a digestive system very similar to monogastric (simple stomached) animals like you and I)--which is simply pass through and act as a means to clean out the poop-shoot--but milled grain will give them a bit more nutrition in the form of energy/carbohydrate (and a tiny bit of protein due to the protein matrix in the corn kernel that needs to be broken through before the microbes can access the starch granules) content than unprocessed/unmilled grain can.

Its important not to feed too much because they can get sick on it--i.e., acidosis, bloat, all those nasty things. As I said above, the maximum I'd give them is 1% of their body weight, as-fed. With unprocessed grain, if that's what you're giving them now, I'd feed about the same, or whatever you feel comfortable offering to them. And let them eat grass!!

 

[ChickenLittle]

WildRoseBeef: I

agree five to ten pounds a day does sound a bit much, especially for those little guys. That's got to be at least 5 to 10% of their bodyweight, way too much for them to consume at one time--you're not raising veal calves, and it seems to me that that's about as much as what you'd feed to a veal calf that's not out and about like your calves are. Two to three lbs a day (or 1% of their bodyweight) is sufficient, and you can consider increasing the ration as they get bigger. If I were you wouldn't be feeding 5 lbs of grain a day until they're around 8 months old.

When we first found out we were going to be able to get calves we started looking at the feed. The bag of calf starter we looked at said right on the bag that you should start them at 1 to 2 pounds at about a week old and then not to wean until they are eating 5 to 6 pounds of grain at about 6 weeks old. It's scary to think of putting that much grain into such a little body.

The one the vet said that we should get was a 16% protein feed which is a mix of grains that are whole but a little bit ground up and some flattened crushed corn with some pellets mixed in. I would rather feed real ground grains if possible but we don't have anything like that in the area so I have to go with what we have. They did okay with what we were feeding them and have started to eat grass over the last day or so so I am thinking that by the end of next week their body condition should go back up all the way.

Pretty much the vet said if they are playing and running around and coming when we call for feedings we don't have anything to worry about because when they are healthy they won't do any of this.