Tummy troubles

Our steer is having tummy trouble. I'm pretty sure we have burned  his stomach trying to get his weight up and finish him. He is eating lots of hay and drinking a normal amout of water. He is acting normal, like nothing is wrong but he will not touch his feed. The last time he ate a full feed was Monday night. He has only ate a few handfuls of heifer feed since then. We gave probitics Tuesday and again Wednesday. I know we need to keep him on hay for a few days and slowly reintroduce his feed but is it time to call a vet?

How is his stool?

A lot of poop firmer than he usually is...

Sounds like he got burned out on the feed, bring him back slow and don't over do it. May need to switch feed on him if he won't eat the old one, just do it slowly.

Does he have a slick gut? (No bugs to digest his food.)

If he's eating hay and not diahreaa his bugs are fine.  Probiotics doesn't hurt, but basically this calf is just done.  If you pulled him away from hay completely, he'd probably start eating feed.

You are a week from leaving for Houston.  Keep him full of hay and don't mess with him.  Under the best of circumstances he wouldn't gain enough to make a difference at this point.  As long as he's eating hay, you can have full for the show.  That's all that matters at this point.

Thank you for your advice. That's what I was afraid of. I wish he was 100lbs heavier just so he still has good condition for our county fair the week after Houston. We have learned so much this year and next year if we decide to do majors we will get an older calf but our target is our county and to win the county bred award your calf has to be born on or after Jan 1st of the previous year.

he has already been on SRB. We get it from Producers feed mill here in Texas. It's 18% fat 12% protein. He won't touch it, we already tried. We got three scoops of feed in him tonight, one scoop at a time. His regular feed not heifer feed. It's the most he's ate since Monday at one time. We also tried sure champ and high octane champion drive. He would lick it off my hand but wouldn't eat the heifer feed if we tried to use it as a top dress. We had him eating so we didn't add anything to the three scoops he ate tonight.

Three scoops again this morning. About half of what he would normally take per feeding. If we try to push for more or add SBR/beet pulp/surechamp he will walk away and leave it. I guess it's better than nothing.

He is getting his fill on hay.  IF you were to eat an entire loaf of bread right before dinner, you wouldn't be able to eat very much of your rib eye no matter how good it was.

Try some Diamond V yeast

We were giving him champion drive with the diamond yeast in it but he stopped eating it. We have him almost back on track with full feeds but if we try to slip any additive at all into it he will walk away. I have never seen one not eat sure champ but if he can smell anything different in the feed he pokes his nose in the air and goes and stands on the other side of the stall until you scoop it out. I hate to get vulgar about it but he is an a$&?@!#