Finishing Dairy Bull Calves.

[Nick Zumbragel]

Anybody out there in the bussiness of finishing dairy bull calves? I picked up a few bull calves a few months back and have them on pasture now. My biggest question is does anybody have any suggestions on how to finish them out the most efficient way? Its been about 7 years since ive last messed with them but growing up it seemed we did pretty well with them. I only have 5 right now but am wanting to step it up here in the winter and look into getting about 15 to 20 head to finish for next year. Any suggestions would be great.

[Nick Zumbragel]

We started with farm and fleet milk replacer and switched to hubbard feed brands. seem to work better. We castrate the calves, im not big into the all natural marketing. What would you suggest for implanting the calves with? We never did that growing up.

[Aaron Braunschweig]

Generally speaking dairy bull calves will have more frame to mess with so they have a longer growth curve so they will take longer to finish out than your average angus influenced beef steer. I would implant any dairy bull calves that you buy and steer unless you are selling them as "all natural". Make sure you use a good milk replacer in the early stages.

[Garrett Mattox]

Friends of mine do this and from what ive been told and have witnessed, dairy steers take longer than a beef steer to finish out. They get them when they are less than a week old and they keep them for just a lil over a year.