Advise on putting weight on a small calf.

[JLL]

Our daughter is 8 and set on showing steers. She's fallen in love with one of her home grown calves, problem is he was born way too late. He's just past 90 days eating precon well and at 350 pounds, still on mom. Has anyone ever had any luck putting a lot of weight on these little guys? If so, what can we do? She spends so much time with him, I want to do the best I can to help her get him up to weight by next August, although we know chances are slim.
Thanks you

 

[vc]

If your goal is to make the minimum weight, so she can show the animal, at 8 years old it might just be the best plan, depending on your minimum it can be done. I showed a home grown 14 month old calf back in the day, we left him on the cow as long as we could supplemented the cow and had him on feed. As soon as we pulled him off the cow, (he was taller than her at this point) we put him on full feed and a protean supplement up until 3 months out then we added a fat supplement to his diet to get finish on him. I really like what stabilized rice bran does for a calf I would get him on a pound a day with his feed as soon as possible and three month out bump it up to 2 pounds a day, also try feeding him 3 times a day it seems to help put weight on them as well.