# At what age should you start feeding calves hay?



## jlgoinggreen (Oct 4, 2009)

At what age should we start feeding the calves hay?


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## Pat (Jul 24, 2004)

You should put hay out for them as soon as possible... whether they eat it or not is a moot point. If it's there, when they are ready for it, they have it.


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## Gregg Alexander (Feb 18, 2007)

On bottle calves I offer it to them on day 3 as well as a handful of grain


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## arcticow (Oct 8, 2006)

What they said.


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## Valmai (Sep 29, 2004)

You can introduce hay from day one, although I usually wait till they are at least 4-7 days old. At that age it does not need to be good quality nutritious feed, just clean straw to get their rumen working. The good quality hay should be introduced in time for them to be eating hay well by the time they are weaned off milk.


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## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

Rumen developement is influenced more by the ingredients in grain. Feeding straw to scratch the rumen to get it working is an old wives tale. http://www.calfnotes.com/pdffiles/CN019.pdf

calves should have access to a good quality grain starter, good quality hay and fresh water within the first week.


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## TSYORK (Mar 16, 2006)

I had a black angus calf that started eating hay at 4 days old.


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## commonsense (Jun 1, 2008)

Our calves start tasting hay within the first couple days. We keep them on the cow for a few months, so they like to try whatever mom is eating. I separate the cow/calf overnight and usually give the calf a bit of hay in case she wants to eat some overnight.


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## Bountiful Ranch (Jan 11, 2010)

Watch a week old calf next to mama. They start chewing on it but watching mom.


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