1st time steer kids- one won’t eat his grain much

[lanim]

Thank you in advance for any help! 1st time steer kids and one of two steers doesn’t like his grain ( stock & stable). We’ve switched brands for Him and offered rolled corn. He only loves his alfalfa hay. We started feeding 12lbs grain am, hay @ noon then 12 more lbs pm.  They were up to 24 lbs each of grain. Any suggestions on what to try to get him to gain. Approx weight is 1100 and fair is in 50 days... his toes are pretty long also so our leader suggested we add pro-bios which we did but he’d have to eat his grain to get that in. Thank you.

 

[ska]

Welcome to steer planet!  so have you tried rival beast? my cattle love it. and maybe try a grain sweetener or something to make it taste better. and he will eventually learn to like it.  when is your fair and what is your desired weight?

 

[Gargan]

What consistency is his stool? My first reaction is ditch the alfalfa and feed a course first cutting grass hay .

 

[vc]

Like Gargan stated no need for Alfalfa, he needs just quality grass hay. Try and skip a feeding of grain and see if he does not eat better the next feeding. Feeding one is the biggest challenge, every steer is different and finding what works each one can be frustrating, over time you will get better at figuring them out. 

 

[lanim]

Thank you for these great tips! I appreciate all of your advice and time you took to give us advice. Switching to grass hay has helped. Thank you steer folks!!

 

[CAB]

The size of calf that you are talking about really doesn't need any hay but if you take all of his hay away from him you'll have to build roughage into his diet. Do you have a nutrition expert to visit with. Commonly used ingredients used in a ration are whole oats, cotton seed hulls, or beet pulp shreds depending on your area and availability. All of the custom feedlots feed requirements in the form of a total ration and rations change accordingly as the cattle go through the different feeding phases.

 

[vc]

Are the calves fed together or apart? Some times a little competition with increase their appetite, feed grain first, hay after they finish. Ours had access to free choice hay at night after they finished their feed, stalled during the day no hay just grained in the morning.
If one tends to eat more than they other, feed tied so they are next to each other, but cat quite get to the others feed.