[country soul]

I ve been rearing two calves on the bucket for the last 8 weeks ( see my previous posts) they are now 11 weeks old and I am weaning them gradually off milk,they are now on once a day only
Any advice on the feeding regime from now onwards until they go out to grass in summer would be welcome?
They are currently eating a kilo  of calf mix each per day  plus have ad lib haylage

These are the first calves I ve reared and have enjoyed it ,for those  who are considering doing the same I can recommend it,the only thing I would say is dont read too many books,just do what appears to be the right thing.
I ve been giving them more volume of milk than recommended on the bag plus I ve been mixing it at a stronger concentration.I took  advice on feeding straw rather than hay but they prefered the hay and have done fine,no pot bellys as  the literature suggests.

[SallyintNorth]

Sounds like you've done a cracking job, country soul, and your proposed regime sounds fine to me.

If you stop the cake when they go out to grass, you may well find they put on a bit of a belly at that point. 

Have you decided how and when to sell them?  If you're putting them in a ring, cake them for at least a month before they go; that will trim that belly off a bit and put a 'bloom' on them.  If you want top money for them, you'll need to bring them in and feed a lot of cake with just enough very good hay or silage to make a balanced ration.  Then their bellies will really tighten up and you will see the muscling start to harden all over their bodies.  (We don't do this, we leave it to the specialist finishers to do it in the final stages.  But at the mart, you can see that the prices in the ring do reflect the amount that's gone into these beasts.)

[Rosemary]

If they are eating a kg of concentrate plus forage, they can come off milk.

I used to calf rear years ago and we had them weaned as soon as they were eating a kg of hard feed. We fed straw though from day one, then on to hay once they were weaned.

[VSS]

We prefer to rear them on straw rather than haylage - very high fibre so its really good for developing rumen function and they don't seem to get that pot belly that they get with hay and haylage.

Glad you've enjoyed it.

[SallyintNorth]

You certainly can wean them when they're eating 1kg of cake - but I prefer to keep them on milk to 3 months old.  They seem to do better thereon, imho - it just gives them a better start, I think, and they are better able to fight off anything that might come along to knock them back later on.  Maybe you could start cutting the milk strength and quantity down to that recommended on the bag, first, then reduce and stop after that.  But with the start you've given them, they'll probably do fine from hereon anyway 

[princesspiggy]

question -
as a finished beast, why does it matter if their belly is pot-bellied or tightly muscled?

[robert waddell]

they sell better and shows a better level of stockmanship

[SallyintNorth]

they sell better and shows a better level of stockmanship

beautifully put, robert

I have always assumed that a tighter belly also makes for better meat, but not being a butcher (and the butchers I've asked not having seen the living animals they've butchered), I don't know that for sure.

[princesspiggy]

is there much meat to be had on the belly then? is it similar to a pig carcuss? my heifers ribs dont have much cover at all.