U of I Student Looks At Changing The Diet Of Dairy Calves

A University of Idaho graduate student is studying whether feeding hay and forage to dairy calves earlier can help them gain weight faster.

Mountain Home’s Katie Corder-Steiner is conducting a 121-day study at Sunview Dairy, in her hometown, where she’s tracking 100 Holstein-Jersey calves. Half the calves receive the traditional diet of milk and grain until weaning, when hay is introduced. The other half get access to hay just days after birth.

“Katie approached us last spring with the idea of feeding forages and hay to our calves at an earlier age than most people do,” Degroot said. “That had been something our nutrition team had been looking at for a long time.”

Corder-Steiner hopes early exposure will help calves adjust to forage sooner and eliminate the one- to two-week weight-gain slowdown often seen after weaning. She noted her study will also compare calf health, mortality and costs.

“They love the forage. We are having to refresh it every day,” Corder-Steiner said. “The worry in the past was if we offered them both, they would eat too much hay and not enough grain.”

Studies conducted in Europe at a shorter length and involving different calf breeds have shown promise for feeding forages earlier.

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