I’ve been looking around trying to find what percent of the body weight of our calf we should be feeding it. We think she’s right around 300 pounds. Feeding a 14% feed with some textured feed mixed in. She’s eating it good and we are gonna start mixing in a little less of the sweet feed and more of the stock grower feed. So how much do you folks think I should be feeding a 300 pound heifer a day.

What is the end goal? I assume she has access to hay and/or grass? Is she weaned off milk?

If you intend to keep her as a breeder. I wouldn't over feed with , Too much high energy feed . You want to grow , her , not get her fat. If you are growing , for the freezer, for your own use. ,feed enough to grow. Depending on the breeding, of the animal , You don't want to get them too fat until , a month or so before finish , then up the grain, you can tell by the manure, when they are getting too much. old243

What breed of animal are we talking about?

We are not sure the end goal yet. She was orphaned and that’s why we ended up with her. She’s weaned. Originally we planned to feed her up and butcher her, but our plan in the next few years is to get our own farm bought so the wife and I have talked about just keeping her and having her be the first member of our herd. She eats great just always seems like she could eat more. She ate down what little grass was in her pen, but I’ve been tossing her a flake of hay each day

I nave more experience with dairy but some of the charts I have reviewed over time show a 300 lbs. stocker calf would eat about 8-9 lbs. of dry matter per day. The big issue for you is as stated above what is the goal? If you want to feed out say to 1200 lbs. finishing then you would feed a lot higher energy (grain) to get 2-3 lbs of gain per day instead of say 1-1.5. If you want to raise her as a heifer for breeding you would feed differently than to finish. You could anticipate about a 2 lbs. dry matter intake per day increase for roughly every 100 lbs. of body weight increase. I. E. a 800 lbs. growing animal would be eating close to 18 lbs. of dry matter. The amount of dry matter eaten per day does not change a whole lot based on rate of gain it just means your feeding a lot more high energy feed (grain) to get higher gain. I noted at your last post you may want to breed her and raise as a heifer. If you want good growth with less grain you need very good pasture and forage when feeding younger growing animals. If your grass or hay is average quality or less you may want to be feeding 4-5 lbs of grain to have her get to breeding size at a normal time. If you have good quality and quantity pasture and hay I would still feed 1-2 lbs. per day just so she gets used to having you near her so you can work with her in the future.

Bryce

A good growing ration would be above 14% protein, once they get to the fattening stage, up the carbs and lower the protein to 12%. If that was my calf, I would feed it a couple lbs. of corn and free choice good hay. 16% or better, if unavailable, make up the difference with soybean meal.

A bovine needs .04 (4%) of it's body weight in nutrition, per day.

300 lbs x .04 = 12 lbs of forage/day

Feed it hay,
Grain as a supplement or treat.
Hay and water

A 300 lb calf NEEDS grain. Hay and grass only will result in it being severely undersized. Normally a calf that size is still on milk, when that's not possible it needs to have grain. How much and what kind can vary depending on different factors, but it can't be skipped. Hay and grass are important too, to keep the rumen working properly.

Grain is optional and never required. I raised cattle for years, never fed a kernal of corn or any small grains and I had very good gains on good forages.
To each, their own...

Back when I was living at home and we had beef cattle, our nursing calves had free choice access to creep feeders filled with raw oats. They got to eat all they could hold, with no concern they would founder. Nursing, oats and all the forage they could eat.

Once weaned, they were started on a ground feed.....corn, bean meal with supplement, and later, were moved to free choice access to ground feed, main base was ground ear corn......cobs and all. Corn cobs was roughage that kept them from foundering. They also had full access to all the grass and/or hay they could eat. Cattle also need free choice access to salt and mineral blocks.

Last month or so, they went into a dry lot to finish them. Heavy grain and hay only. If you want a fat, juicy steak with white marbling, other than genetics of the animal, it will need to be finished in a dry lot (no green grass). Then if you really want to do it right, kill him quiet.....bleed him well, shroud carcass and let it hang a couple weeks before processing.

But as for how much now, calf that size......I'd start off with about one quart....ground feed, starter pellets or whatever you are feeding........and see how long he takes to eat it. Should lick the trough......look for more, then walk away. Gradually move that up to half gallon.......our about same amount as 5# sack of flour. Same......watch, make sure he eats it all on the spot. Never want to feed so much he walks away without cleaning it all up. Always move feed amounts up gradually, so as to minimize risk of foundering. Feed at the same time each day....bang your bucket, make same noise and he will come to you.....probably on the run.

I normally keep 25 weaned developing replacement heifers here on the farmstead. Over the years I've tried several different regimens. These heifers have some grazing available but I keep a round bale of low quality fescue hay available in a ring feeder. I hand feed them a concentrate ration I buy in bulk at the rate of 4 pounds per head once a day for these animals weighing 600 to 700 pounds. They were started out after weaning at two pounds per head per day. This is a simple ration of 50% ground corn, 25% dried distillers grain meal, and 25% soy hull pellets. This currently seems to be working really well.

Then you weren’t weaning at 300 lbs. This isn’t opinion, a calf weaned at that age and fed strictly grass and hay will always be stunted and never be a breeding animal. Or good beef for that matter. Growing calves NEED nutrition not found in normal grass and hay.

Lots of studies show that feeding crumbled type grains early in the calves lives promotes rumen development better than grass or forages do. To me that suggest getting the calves up on a good grain mix early will also promote rumen growth and development and have t=he calves utilizing forages better and making total gain and growth better.

Bryce

Definitely an interesting discussion.

Nobody mentioned minerals. I can't believe it.

Grain is optional and never required. I raised cattle for years, never fed a kernal of corn or any small grains and I had very good gains on good forages.
To each, their own...[/quote]
Then you weren’t weaning at 300 lbs. This isn’t opinion, a calf weaned at that age and fed strictly grass and hay will always be stunted and never be a breeding animal. Or good beef for that matter. Growing calves NEED nutrition not found in normal grass and hay. [/quote]

Never weaned calves that light, kept them on Mom longer than that for good reason. Our herd was a very good wirking herd. You believe what you believe and that's fine, although I disagree with you, we'll just agree to disagree.

I once read that the human mind is like a parachute, both only function when open.

Thanks everyone for the opinions. Lots of good info and lots of different things seem to work For different people. I do have mineral out for her as well. And the only reason the calf is weaned so young is because the mother died