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Faunsdale, AL | Ground corn plus the protein supplements as needed to balance and mineral with ionophore premix with some molasses to stick it all together. I also added Deccox crumbles because the small calves cannot enough feed to get the ionophore level they need to prevent coccidiosis. In summary, there may be a lot of stuff in your expensive starter that you would miss if you cut it out but you might be able to save some money. How will you store and handle the home mixed feed. We had been mixing our own for a long time and had a small bulk bin already, elevator leg to fill it etc.
No way I would try whole corn. Starter needs to have ground corn for consumption and digestion once they eat it. Ground ear corn if it was available would work nicely. I usually included some whole oats or soyhull pellets to give some texture. Many calves initially didn’t eat the oats or pellets but within a week or so they would be shining the pail!
I mixed a second feed for older heifers that was mostly soyhull pellets and higher mineral rate to get the desired consumption of the ionophore with the heifers on pasture. Stayed away from corn so as not to cut into the rumen fiber digester population, but that’s more of a theoretical concern that I could compromise on if the price of soy hulls got too high relative to corn.
Edited by ccjersey 1/23/2020 10:37
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Homemade calf starter
