Forage Feeding Problems

Feeding programs for young calves have changed fundamentally. Research at several institutes around the world have shown that preweaning average daily gain (ADG) has a long-lasting impact on calf health, develoment, and – ultimately – the ability of the calf to make milk in its first and subsequent lactations. As a result, calves are typically fed much more milk to foster greater rates of preweaning ADG with the idea that “more milk equals more milk“. In many parts of the world, I visited farms that feed 8, 9, 10 or 12 liters of milk per day to calves prior to weaning. The calves look great, as you can see in the picture. They look great right up to weaning

At weaning, these calves often lose weight, feel stressed, and may develop respiratory disease. And when you look at the weaning pens, you’ll often see feces with a charactieristic liquid consistency, indicating the calves are struggling with acidosis, as you can see below.

Calves are struggling with “post-weaning slump” due to a lack of rumen development, often coupled with high concentrations of starch in typical pelleted calf starters. This combination results in low rumen pH and escape of starch into the intestine. The bottom line is poor digestion, diarrhea, and reduced efficiency.

There’s no such thing as running away from the problem. They’re very patient and will wait a lifetime for you.
— Darnell Lamont Walker

One solution to this problem is the proper feeding of forage. The proper amounts and type of forage (i.e., dry hay) to help stabilize the rumen and reduce acidosis and diarrhea. It’s common for calf nutritionists to recommend feeding dry hay beginning either shortly before or immediately after weaning (depending on the farm’s ability to manage forage feeding). Based on work conducted at several universities around the world, the recommended type of forage is lower quality, higher fiber, fed at 5 to about 15% of the total dry feed.

I recently visited a large dairy farm in China that was struggling with post-weaning diarrhea. Calves were fed about 12 liters of whole milk per day to weaning at about 70 days. Amount of milk offered was reduced in a step-wise fashion over about 3 weeks and the pelleted calf starter intake increased to nearly 4 kg per day.

This farm – like many others – offered forage to calves beginning at weaning, and when calves were moved from individual hutches into group pens. They had struggled with the problem for some time and considered forage feeding to be a great solution. They to the additional step of top-dressing the forage – a low quality grass hay – over the pellets to “force” the calves to eat hay first, and then grain.

As you can see in the photo to the right, calves were very capable of selecting and sorting through the forage to get to the grain below. The forage was essentially “pushed aside” and the calves ate the grain instead of the forage. The solution, of course, was to actually mix the hay (properly chopped) with the grain in a “dry TMR” to provide a balanced ration that the calves couldn’t select.

I worked with the farm on how to implement the TMR idea, as well as to adjust their calf starter formulation to improve pellet quality (important when you’re blending pellets with chopped forage) and reduce the excess starch. The plan was drawn up, discussed with management and an implementation date was set.

A few weeks after the farm began blending a “calf TMR”, the issues of post-weaning calf diarrhea were markedly reduced, growth and intake were better, and there was a marked reduction in the amount of loose feces in weaning pens. The managers and owners of the farm were very happy with the result of our consultation.

Perhaps you have an opportunity to improve your management?

Click the link below to discuss how Jim might help you improve your calf management

…we have all, at some point, confused doing something—anything—with actually solving the problem.
— Sherry Thomas