In order to successfully engage in cattle breeding, you need to know all the intricacies of the care and maintenance of these animals. The most important step is feeding the calves, as adult individuals do not particularly need special conditions. But young animals of any gender need special and careful supervision for their normal growth and development.
Feeding a newborn calf
After the calf was born, he immediately needs to create comfortable conditions. Firstly, it is necessary to equip a warm, dry place that will not be blown so that the calf can be there. For this, special cells are usually equipped in which straw is laid. You can install it in the barn, but if it is not blown.
Secondly, it is necessary to properly feed the calves. After the calf is born , the cow stops giving normal milk and begins to give colostrum. This is a special substance that is much more nutritious than regular milk, and also contains many vitamins, antibodies and other nutrients and minerals that are necessary for the normal growth and development of newborn offspring. In addition, the newborn organism is especially susceptible to various kinds of diseases, and feeding with colostrum will eliminate this problem, as it will contribute to the speedy strengthening and development of immunity.
How to feed a calf
Feeding calves should take place in a special mode. Colostrum is the main food for newborn offspring. The feeding process needs to be carried out from 4 to 6 times a day. Immediately after birth, you need to start with a single dose, feeding 1 liter at a time. Over time, the rate of colostrum should reach 3 liters. It is very important to note that colostrum is a special milk that has one not very pleasant property. The thing is that it loses its benefit too quickly over time, and after a few days the cow completely stops giving it and starts producing ordinary milk. Therefore, in the first days of life, you should try to water the calf with colostrum as often as possible.
Feeding the calves in the first days of their life should be accompanied by the fact that on the second day of age, the animal should drink up to 1.5 liters of warm water per day. This is necessary to stabilize the digestive process and improve it.
Place of offspring
It is worth mentioning that feeding a newborn calf is only part of caring for him. To grow a healthy and strong offspring will not work without organizing the proper place of stay of the animal. There are some rules that are best followed if you need to raise healthy calves.
- Twice a day, it is necessary to clean the cage from the litter, as well as to clean all the dirty corners.
- Dishes that are used for feeding and watering offspring, as well as those used for milking a cow, should be thoroughly washed and scalded with boiling water after each use.
- In the first couple of days, you need to ensure that the calf drinks colostrum only in small sips. To better control this process, it is recommended to use a nipple drinker.
- Fattening calves can be done without a special nipple, but if it is not, then colostrum is placed in a small bucket. To show the animal where the food is, you can slightly wet your finger in colostrum.
- When the animal grows up a bit and is able to drink completely on its own, the bucket can be nailed to the wall, and can be poured colostrum into it from the outside.
Milk Feeding Process
In order to successfully feed the calves according to the desired pattern, it is necessary to take care of the content of the calf separately from its mother. The thing is that if you leave offspring with the parent, the calf will drink colostrum as much as he wants. Since such small animals do not have a sense of proportion, the offspring will drink too much, and overloading the body will lead to further problems with the milk production of this individual.
It is necessary to ensure that the calf drank a little more for the reason that too large a single dose of colostrum simply collapses right in the stomach, and this will cause a digestive problem. It is very important to carry out the first feeding on time. No matter what time of day the calving occurred, the calf should receive its first dose of colostrum within the next 30 minutes.
Feeding three-week-old calves
The diet of calves up to three weeks is only colostrum, milk and water. But after this period and beyond, it will gradually expand and become more diverse. Here are some examples of what you can give to a little grown calf:
- To feed young calves, you can use boiled potatoes.
- It is still possible to give the animal milk, but its quantity should become less and less. You can use a calf milk substitute to keep more for yourself.
- At the age of one month, the diet is replenished with hay. However, since the young animal is still not good at chewing, the hay must be small and of high quality so that the calf learns the process of chewing food. At the same time, hay is moistened with saline to prevent worms.
- When the animal turns a month old, you can fully use the milk replacer for calves, which is called back. Over time, the proportion of such nutrition in the diet of offspring can become more and more, completely replacing milk.
The need for proper feeding
The feeding process of young animals is very different depending on the sex of the animal. It is very important to properly and balanced fatten heifers, that is, female calves. There are several reasons for this:
- It is important to monitor the protein content in food, since a small amount will lead to slow growth, and too large will lead to poor use of this substance.
- For the full growth and development of the female, it is necessary to provide her with sufficient calcium and phosphorus, since these two substances play a key role in the formation and growth of tissues and bones.
- It is very important to monitor a sufficient amount of vitamins such as A and D. To obtain them, add high-quality hay, fishmeal to food. And you can also stimulate the synthesis of vitamin D by walking in the fresh air.
- Female cattle feed should consist of substances such as whole milk, concentrates, succulent feed, hay, and mineral nutrition.
Dosage of feed for heifer growth
In order to achieve rapid growth and development of a female, you need to know the correct dosage of all feed, at what time they need to be given.
- Starting from the 15-20th day of the animal’s life, he needs to start giving dry oatmeal. For its preparation, it is necessary to sift the product through a sieve, mix with warm water, and then you can pour it into a feeder. And also this product can be fed through a bottle.
- starting from the 11th day of life, it is necessary to provide the animal with enough salt and chalk. The initial dosage is 5 grams of each product. The older the animal, the greater the dose of salt.
- From 10-15 days of life, heifers can begin to give her hay. However, for good growth and development, nutrition should only be of high quality.
- Juicy feed for cattle, which includes products such as root crops and potatoes, can be given to an animal from its second month of life.
Further development of heifers
Feeding a monthly calf is very important, however, it will be necessary to monitor the diet in the next few months. Starting from the second month of a heifer's life, oatmeal in her diet must be replaced with corn or a mixture of concentrates. Silo and hay can be given in unlimited quantities. If there is a lack of silage, then you can replace it with a copious amount of root crops in the diet. Some other changes in nutrition occur at the moment when the grazing period begins.
- Until 3 or 4 months of the animal, the number of concentrates in the diet and milk remains at the same level.
- Silage and hay cease to give at all. Replace it with ordinary green grass.
- If grass quality problems arise in the pasture, then domestic calves need additional nutrition in the form of mowed green plants.
- If there are no problems with green grass, the number of concentrates and root crops in the diet of the animal is reduced by half. This also happens in 3-4 months of age.
Growing meat breeds as a business
In addition to dairy cattle, there are also meat. Breeding cattle as a business for selling meat is a very, very profitable business. However, in order to grow good offspring, it is necessary to create all the necessary conditions of detention. However, this is not all. To get a large amount of meat, you must choose one of the meat breeds of cattle. Since ordinary cows or bulls have a fairly small amount of muscle tissue in terms of its sale in the market.
Meat calves
One of the fairly good meat breeds of cattle is Hereford. The big advantage of this kind of animals is that they can tolerate any disease, and their immunity is very strong. In addition, the offspring of these cows are gaining weight much faster than any other, and the animals themselves are quite hardy. Hereford meat calves are born with a weight of 34 to 36 kg, which is already a lot. With further proper care and feeding, babies gain 1 kg per day. It is worth noting that because of such a fast and powerful process of growth and development, calves lack only mother’s milk, and therefore they need additional food from the first days of life.
Fattening bulls for slaughter
When breeding bulls for further slaughter, they must be kept up to about 15-20 months of age. When there will remain about three months before slaughter, it is necessary to begin enhanced feeding of the individual. If everything is done correctly, then by the time of slaughter the animal will weigh more than 400 kg. A male animal’s nutrition consists of milk, as well as a variety of feeds, until about six months. In the event that the goby was born in the spring, then it can be fed not with roughage, but with lush and green grass. Such a diet will stimulate the rapid growth and development of the animal. At the age of about a year, the diet for the bull, which is intended for slaughter, should be half composed of silage. In the spring and summer, animals that are 12 to 18 months old can not be given concentrates. In this case, they should be kept on only one pasture.