First calf heifers?

[jagerbeef]

I have some first calf heifers that are giving everything to their calves.  I was wondering how much grain and what kind of protein level everyone feeds to there heifers to keep them in good shape?
Also what kind of rations do you use for yearling heifer to help them developing?

Thanks

 

[ALTSIMMY 79]

Im going to put this as nicely as i can but my first calf heifers feed themselves grass !!! And they also have some mineral out on pasture for them to lick on , they stay fat without a problem. Anything that wont keep all summer on grass isnt gonna make much of a real world cow in my eyes. Under some tough circumstances like a very hard labor , twins , c section or something ill grain them for no more than 30 days .

 

[OLD WORLD SHORTIE]

I say give them whatever is economically viable, I get a corn gluten/ soy bean pellet for $6 per 100 which really goes a long way for the money. After that i would say get them a few tubs, in Texas the grass is burnt to a crisp so the tubs is helping them eat down the dried up grass. Of course every place is different and your cattle might have different needs so explore all options to get your cattle in the best possible shape to not only breed back fast but also give quality milk to calves.

 

[DCC show cattle]

altsimmy you must not be near or south of the red river... in saying that we use a urea protein liquid feed and a breeder/salt meal as stated above. In the summer heat and drought its better to utilize what God has given us instead of losing money in actually feeding of grain. If you are in a situation where you do not have any grass to graze, I would get with your feed store and figure on a conditioning ration instead of a show type ration with around 10% protein

 

[ALTSIMMY 79]

DCC , no I'm up in good grass country.  And of course that makes a huge difference but I still believe if they can't work for you on grass something needs to change ! 

 

[DCC show cattle]

i guess it depends on the program if these are club calf heifers the calves might be on more creep feed than mommas, and that might be another option is to creep feed your babies making them feed off momma a little less

 

[chambero]

The real reason to make sure your first calf heifers stay in good condition after calving is to make sure they breed back.  We calve in the fall so we are trying to breed back in early winter.  We had some troubles a few years back with rebreeding I had researched the issue pretty hard back then.  There is some pretty hard data that feeding a little extra fat to your heifers after calving goes a long way towards getting them bred back.  How you get it varies with location, but there are a bunch of options.  Our mistake was that we feed a very high protein cube in the winter to supplement our forage.  Our heifers weren't getting enough fat back in them.

 

[Top Knot]

Wean the calves. It will be way cheaper to feed a calf than to put condition of a heifer that is still lactating. Remove the calves and the heifers will gain weight on forage.

 

[jagerbeef]

LT I would love to have good grass for them, but don't have it.  We have a few to many head running in our pasture, but have found in our area it is cheaper to buy hay than to rent pasture.  The neighbor closest to us rents 20 acres of pasture for $1900, I can buy a lot of good grass hay for that money.  As far as lick tubs we use Crystalyx's breed-up 28 and it seems to be working quite well, as 9 of our ten cows caught AI.  We are planning to wean the calves off of the first calf heifers at the end of this month to try and get more weight on them.

Thank you to everyone else for their ideas and suggestions.

 

[ZNT]

Wean the calves. It will be way cheaper to feed a calf than to put condition of a heifer that is still lactating. Remove the calves and the heifers will gain weight on forage.

I second that!  Wean the calves.  It is way cheaper to feed the calf than feed the calf through the cow.  We have had great luck weaning calves at 120-150 days.  Got along ok with 90 old calves, but wouldn't go any younger.

You will be amazed how much weight your heifers put on by just not having a calf sucking on them.  You may not need any supplements.

 

[kfacres]

LT I would love to have good grass for them, but don't have it.  We have a few to many head running in our pasture, but have found in our area it is cheaper to buy hay than to rent pasture.  The neighbor closest to us rents 20 acres of pasture for $1900, I can buy a lot of good grass hay for that money.  As far as lick tubs we use Crystalyx's breed-up 28 and it seems to be working quite well, as 9 of our ten cows caught AI.  We are planning to wean the calves off of the first calf heifers at the end of this month to try and get more weight on them.

Thank you to everyone else for their ideas and suggestions.

rotational, or intensive grazing may solve your problem.  I have heard that it allows you to *sometimes* keep as many as double the head of animals on your area- most of the time are 1.5x.

Or it can work the opposite, meaning if you're overstocked- and you apply those practices you might be stocked at the correct number of animals per acre to work out.

I agree with you on renting pasture, or buying land...  From my experience if you don't inherit it, then it's cheaper to dry lot and feed hay...