bottle baby

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showcattlegal

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Jan 26, 2007
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gallup New Mexico
I have a bottle baby that i weaned a couple of weeks ago. She is really looking good, but she still has a big belly. How do I take it off of her? She has really good bloodlines and I would like to show her this fall.
 

red

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Jan 20, 2007
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LaRue, Ohio
It seems that they have more of a belly than others. My advice would be to worm her & see if that helps.

Red
 

Jill

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Gardner, KS
Try feeding her several times a day (split her feedings) I think most people feed them twice a day like you would for a dairy calf and it stretches the belly.  We have had a couple of kids in the bottle calf project that tried this with beef heifers they ended up keeping and it helped.
 

DLD

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sw Oklahoma
If you want to avoid the big belly on bottle babies (in addition to feeding several times a day, as Jill said) use a milk based milk replacer instead of a soy based one. I know either Vigortone or VitaFerm makes one. It is more expensive, but well worth it if the calf has showring potential.

 

showcattlegal

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gallup New Mexico
She gets hay all day. I will try feeding her a couple time durning the day too. She don't get milk anymore. I found her mom dead in the pasture about a month in half ago so she wasn't a bottle baby for very long.
 

kanshow

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How old is she? 

If she isn't too old, we put them on a self feeder full of creep feed until they get a little older.  That seems to keep the belly off for us.   We also put a little hay out but prefer that the calf gets mostly the creep feed. 
 

kanshow

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I'd put her on a self feed of creep then.  I'd use a pelleted creep feed too. 
 

Jill

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Ok, my response was for a bottle baby.  For your calf, we wean all of our calves at or around 4 months they are on a self creep feeder, we use Purina Show Chow grower  (I'm not really sold on any name brand that's just what we happen to use), they have free choice mineral, salt and hay.
 
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