Weaning is the toughest time in a calf's life. Environmental stress from weaning and vaccinating leaves calves vulnerable to a wide spectrum of diseases. Under normal conditions, the organisms that cause disease are easily controlled by the animal's immune system. But during weaning, the calf's immune system stoops to its lowest point.

Obviously you need to feed the calf in order to keep it healthy and to allow for vaccines to work. If you don't feed the calf, it may get lucky, but eventually, that move will catch up with you. Still, once you decide to feed the calf, you've got to plan a feeding strategy. Grain rations composed of high levels of starch--such as corn, milo, wheat and even oats--are accidents waiting to happen.

Rumen bacteria are mainly forage digesters and when these types of grain ingredients are introduced, the animal's digestive system doesn't have the ability to completely ferment the intake. Lactic acid accumulates, which means calves may get bellyache, go off feed, get sick, founder, and even die. It takes three weeks for an animal to adjust to such a ration. The conundrum is that the calf needs a high plane of nutrition at the onset of weaning, not three weeks later.

The fix
Because of this weaning/nutrition conflict, MFA and other companies have developed preconditioner feeds. The premise of preconditioners is that they are low in starch. They either have the roughage built into the feed so they can be fed free choice or have no roughage and are fed separately.

Cattle Charge does not contain roughage but it can be fed free choice along with conventional roughage. It is the only preconditioner on the market that can be fed this way.

Tips for feeding
Cattle Charge should be fed free choice or hand fed at 10 lbs. per head per day. Within the framework of this recommendation, feeding Cattle Charge free choice is the favored method.

Anytime you hand feed or limit the amount fed to these young animals, performance is reduced. That's because limiting the feeding to 10 lbs. means the cattle that aren't feeling the best and need Cattle Charge the most may not get 10 lbs. or maybe not any at all. Because healthy animals dominate the bunk, the half-sick animals may get cheated and lose important daily rations.

After the cattle adjust to weaning, you can begin hand feeding lesser amounts. If you feed less than 10 lbs., you should feed Trendsetter rather than Cattle Charge. Trendsetter is built to feed at 1 percent of body weight.

The first feed offered to weaned calves or newly purchased calves should be Cattle Charge with AS700. To avoid respiratory problems, AS700 is the best drug of choice. If you can get cattle on 10 lbs. or more of Cattle Charge, they're usually home free. After navigating the initial danger zones of weaning, you should change from AS700 to Bovatec. In the charts above are the results of a study done by West Kentucky University. Notice the value of vaccinations. The figures show that a two-shot vaccination program is slightly better than one-shot regimen. The bottom of the chart shows results from MFA's Health Track Beef Alliance program. The difference is Cattle Charge.

Some 34.7 percent of the animals that didn't receive Cattle Charge got sick. By contrast, animals in the MFA Health Track Beef Alliance and receiving Cattle Charge suffered a sickness rate of just 1.05 percent. Their death rate dropped to 0.3%. This data is a simple and strong testimonial for Cattle Charge.