Growing hair.

I live in south texas where it is all heat all the time, not ideal for growing hair at all. I have grown some nice hair on my heifer,but she still needs more.  I spend a long time working with her to grow it. She gets shag, is in all day long then put out at night, she is washed/rinsed daily, I blow her out, spray her down and brush her daily...but I am just curious if there is something else I could do. What tips and tricks do you all use for growing hair?

Feed beet pulp soaked in ice cold water for about ten minutes, and then mix it in with her feed.  Also, when you rinse, just soak the heck out of her belly.  There's a big ol vein that runs the length of the calf on their underside and you can get even a shaggy haired calf chilled on the hottest of days if you have cold water and about 10 minutes.  We feed Melatonin and keep them in the dark as much as possible as well.  Misters might be a good idea, and of course trying to keep the humidity down is a big one.

She was getting soaked beet pulp with her feed already, I will def rinse her bellie extra from now on!! We are trying to figure out how to get a mister set up to our fans. Thanks alot!! ;D

-justin

agreed on the soaking part. get up underneath her front legs on her chest really well too. that is where alot of heat is produced because of the heart is working there. their brisket is also kind of a hot spot too so soak it well

What does the melatonin do?

stangs13 said:

What does the melatonin do?

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It's a naturally ocurring hormone that is produced more when the days start getting shorter, and it promotes hair growth and slows down heart rate and stuff like that.  It's the reason that calves and cows start hairing up somewhat before it starts to get cold out.  Keeping the calves in the dark more promotes the production of melatonin and feeding it to them promotes hair growth as well.  It can also be used to chill a calf out, kinda like calf calm, only fed daily. 

Olson Family Shorthorns said:

stangs13 said:

What does the melatonin do?

Click to expand...

It's a naturally ocurring hormone that is produced more when the days start getting shorter, and it promotes hair growth and slows down heart rate and stuff like that.  It's the reason that calves and cows start hairing up somewhat before it starts to get cold out.  Keeping the calves in the dark more promotes the production of melatonin and feeding it to them promotes hair growth as well.  It can also be used to chill a calf out, kinda like calf calm, only fed daily. 

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I've never used it, but heard that it does indeed work great as a natural calf calm.  And also heard that it will grow hair. 

We used it for the first time three years ago on my Hoosier Hot Shot female.  We started feeding it in the first part of the summer because she has a crappy attitude the first few times we took her out in the spring.  She was also pretty flat haired, but she was a whale of a heifer, so of course we wanted to jackpot her around.  We started feeding her like 15 tablets per feeding, and we increased it up to 20 per feeding.  She started to calm down, and she wasn't as jumpy.  At our county fair, we noticed how much hair she had actually grown so far (about 30 days), and had only been feeding it for a month, and by our state fair (about 90 days), she had a decent amount of hair(especially on her legs and flank), and won her class! 

Im going to have to pick some of that up! Where can I get large amounts of it? And what did it cost?

We get the biggest jar we can find at Wal Mart...and I can't remember what it costs...probably like 20 bucks for a decent sized one?  You'd have to look lol.  Good Luck!

I will!! Thanks alot! More comments are appreciated! ;D

Any product with Tasco in it will lower body temperature and help grow hair.  Most of the purina show products have it in it. 

You can pack them up and move to ND for the winter. When we're at -20 the hair grows like crazy...the only downside is that you don't want to be outside working the hair any longer than you need to be.

I am currently feeding purina products. I wish I could move!!  (lol)

stangs13 said:

I am currently feeding purina products. I wish I could move!!  (lol)

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Stay in Texas and build a cool room... Trust me you'll be better off...

We have a cool calf cool room which is great we keep it about 50 degrees in the summer and about 1 to two weeks before the state fair we increase the temp so the calves get used to the heat.  We also feed Grow n Shine which is a melatonia product it is great we have really noticed a difference in the amount of hair that we get the calves to grow.  We use a small sheep drenching gun to give it to the calves and after about two weeks the calves love the taste they will almost suck the stuff out of the drench gun.  We get up at 4:30 am so our calves are in the cooler before it is light outside when we bring them in we rinse them with regular water then we have two chest deep freezers which are filled with water and plugged in so we rinse them till they hump their backs with freezer water twice a day am and pm. About 8:00 pm we start our nightly routine of rinsing, brushing and we completely blow them dry when we let them out at night about 10:00 or 11 depending how hot it is outside.  Our steers never see the light of day from memorial day untill state fair in august.  After county fair last year we had one steer that had some thinning of hair on his neck and shoulders.  we used straight ice cubes and would put them on his back the straight ice cubes worked better than bags of ice because if the bags slipped you would lose all of your ice but the cubes you would only lose a few cubes not all of it.  The kids would go in the cooler every two hours and put 4 - 6 cups of ice cubes on his back.  It helped to keep him chilled that he did grow the hair that he lost at county fair back by state fair time.  One more trick we use it that every day we tie them up so they have to stand for 2 - 3 hours in the cooler.  This helps because we have fans running in the cooler all the time that blow on their legs and this helps cool their legs.  If you let them lay down all the time they lay on their legs and it traps the heat from their body and they won't grow as good of leg hair.  These are just some of the tricks that we use to help grow hair.  Good luck!

Thanks for the info keep it coming!!

Melatonin is great!  I've used it with oxygen before shag came out, but since shag already has a full dose of melatonin in it, I would be careful how much extra you feed.