Feeding question for former bottle calf

It's been 22 years since I showed club calves in 4-H. My daughter will be starting her first year of 4-H this fall. She had a bottle calf for pre 4-H this summer and will be taking it back to the fair next summer as a market steer. He's not a high powered club calf but is a nice enough animal, high percentage shorthorn. What should his grain ration be at this point? He's 5 months old and approx. 325-350 lbs, weaned from bottle the end of June.

Should he be implanted? How do you worm, with what and how often?

Thanks for any and all help. Trying to learn this all over again.

I will let other that know more about it then me respond but they will likely want to know when is target show.....  And perhaps if you have an idea of the calfs projected final frame size?      Sounds like a good calf for you and your daughter to learn on.    Nice and gentle for a good first experience.    My six year old had a blast showing a bottle calf this summer!  Kinda wish we had gotten her a heifer instead of a bull calf.    She is lobbying to keep him as a herd sire cause after all, he is a show bull....... <cowboy>.  Good luck

tattoo1 said:

It's been 22 years since I showed club calves in 4-H. My daughter will be starting her first year of 4-H this fall. She had a bottle calf for pre 4-H this summer and will be taking it back to the fair next summer as a market steer. He's not a high powered club calf but is a nice enough animal, high percentage shorthorn. What should his grain ration be at this point? He's 5 months old and approx. 325-350 lbs, weaned from bottle the end of June.

Should he be implanted? How do you worm, with what and how often?

Thanks for any and all help. Trying to learn this all over again.

Click to expand...

There are a gazillion feed rations but what is important for this little guy is to introduce a ration that will help him grow and put on a little weight doing so. So you need between 900-1000# s in a year. He will have to gain 2-2.5lbs a day to make 1250-1350. Not sure of his frame size or your counties weight requirements. But AAOK has a simple feed ration that can be tweaked for just about any calf if you mill your own feed. We have always left hay available free choice and never had a problem making weight. If you want a specific ration feel free to pm me. There are also bunches of premix feeds. I had just as good luck with my milled feed as I  did with bagged feed. I would get him eating 2-3% of his body weight if you can. He should be ob about 8-8.75 lbs of feed a day. I hope I didn't mess up my math.

As far as worming, I would hit him with a ivermectin pour-on or injectable first off, and then paste worm him every 45 days after that. You want to make sure that his final worming is done at no less than 45 days from the fair, if it hits so your worming 60 days out then that should be your last worming.