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Nutrients required for calf growth are met through its dam milk and forage. Typically, adequate weight gain occurs with milk and grazed forage. Decreases in forage quality energy and protein or quantity creates insufficient nutrients for optimum gain.
In these situations, creep-feeding may be a viable option. Additionally, first-calf heifers and older cows may not produce enough milk to support the desired calf performance, hence creep-feeding may be a benefit in these situations. Selecting the optimal creep-feed is important for the best economic benefit.
The two most common types of creep feeds used in South Dakota are energy or protein creep feeds. The most common is high energy creep. The ration must be energy and protein dense, because the rumen of the calf is small, so the calf will not eat a large amount of feed.
Additionally, the feeds must be palatable. Most commercially available creep rations are pelleted and highly palatable. Non-pelleted creep feeds must be dust-free and uniformly mixed to prevent calves from sorting ingredients. Additionally, if liquid feed ingredients are added make sure the creep feed will flow through the feeder. Energy creep-feeds can be made up of on-farm grains, such as corn, oats, or barley either whole, cracked or rolled.
Table 1 provides some examples of common creep-feed rations. Free choice high starch feeds can cause digestive disturbances, so use caution when selecting feedstuffs.
Calves consuming large quantities of starch in grain-based creep feeds may experience acidosis. Limiting creep intake can prevent acidosis. Delivering high starch creep feed daily allows producers to limit intake; however, this is a very labor-intensive option.
Intake of creep feed can be limited by adding salt to the creep feed as an intake limiter. Research has reported feed to gain with calves fed high energy creep feeds to be range to This means it takes 8 pounds of creep feed on a dry matter basis to gain one pound. Although soybean meal is more expensive than corn, in this study, even if soybean meal is twice as expensive as corn, it would still be more economical to feed the 30 percent protein feed versus the 10 percent protein feed Table 7.
Research shows that soybean or cottonseed meal, limit-fed with salt, can stimulate an efficient increase in weaning weight. The major action of high protein creep feed is to increase forage digestibility and forage intake. This option would be more beneficial when protein prices are low or when there is abundant low quality forage and a protein supplement is needed to maximize performance. Supplementing warm season grasses such as bermudagrass and bahiagrass with high protein creep feeds will increase calf performance.
When compared to unlimited creep feed, limited creep intake with salt will result in lower daily gains but improved feed efficiency. The system has been tested under conditions where adequate forage is available but lacking in protein content.
In these situations, the conversion of creep feed to added gain has ranged from 2. Between 10 and 15 percent salt has been effective in limiting daily intake to about 1 pound of soybean or cottonseed meal. Intake should be limited to this level because more of the favorable effects on forage digestibility and intake are achieved more efficiently with the first pound of protein creep.
Beyond the 1-pound level, additional protein creep will likely be used for energy, and the conversion of creep to added gain will become less efficient. Limiting intake of high protein creep feeds will not yield as much added gain as allowing unlimited intake of creep feed. Expect about one-third to one-half as much added gain when using the limited intake system as compared to allowing creep feed to be consumed in unlimited amounts.
This option is more suited for selling calves at weaning, as the creep-fed calves should not receive a discount for being too fat compared to non-creep-fed calves. All creep feed does not have to be grain or grain by-products. Creep grazing programs can produce additional calf gains using forage rather than the traditional grain-based creep diets. There are many ways to adapt this system to each individual situation, but the bottom line is that it must be profitable.
Most forages can be used for successful creep grazing as long as they are high in nutrient quality and readily available. Time of year will affect which forage is used for creep grazing. During the warm season months, most producers will use legumes, pearl millet, or sorghum-sudan grass. During the cool season months, annual grasses like rye, oats, wheat or ryegrass will be used. Using summer annuals such as pearl millet, calves can be stocked at six to 10 head per acre of creep forage.
Two different methods have been used to allow calves access to creep forage while keeping cows out. One method is to build a typical creep gate with entrance slots 18 inches wide and place the creep gate in the fence line or at the gate separating the creep grazing area from the main pasture.
Another method is to use one strand of electric wire to allow calves to graze while keeping cows out. Placing this single strand of wire 36 to 42 inches above the ground will allow calves to pass under while keeping the cows out. Similar to grain creep feeds, the added weight gain from creep grazing depends on pasture quality.
Regardless of forage quality, if forage quantity is a problem, creep grazing should have a positive effect on calf performance and possibly cow performance as well. Daily gains tend to be less than the full fed energy creep systems. Daily gains are usually increased by 10 to 20 percent with creep grazing. However, improvements in daily gains of 0 to 50 percent have been reported. This underscores the effects that pasture quality and quantity exert on gains of creep-grazed calves.
If both the cow and calf are grazing a high quality grass-legume forage, the expected benefits of creep grazing would be minimal. The base pasture for the cows was a white clover and Kentucky Bluegrass mixture. Weaning weights were not increased for calves that creep grazed compared to calves not creep grazed.
If calves are grazing fungus-infected fescue or any other poor quality forage, then creep grazing would be beneficial. A trial in northern Alabama used Tifleaf 1 Pearlmillet as a creep forage, and cows grazed only endophyte-infected tall fescue. This trial showed that calf average daily gain was increased from 1. As a result, calves that creep grazed weighed 75 pounds more at weaning. In addition, cows of the calves that were creep grazed gained weight during the study, whereas cows of calves not creep grazed lost weight.
Research in Louisiana Bagley et al. Trials conducted at the University of Georgia have demonstrated that Aeschynomene can improve calf gains of fall-weaned calves Table 9. Aeschynomene also known as American joint vetch is a high quality tropical legume that can be grown in the lower one-fourth of Georgia. Calf average daily gain was increased when cows grazed either Coastal or Tifton 85 bermudagrass.
In addition, cow gain was greater for cows that had creep-grazed calves compared with cows that had calves not creep-grazed. Additional research in Florida Table 10 showed that a variety of warm season legumes and millet can improve daily gains of calves when the cows are grazing Bahiagrass pastures.
Creep grazing has a few other indirect benefits. One is that calves do not get as fat as when they are fed a grain-based creep feed and may not receive price discounts often applied to calves fed an unlimited high energy creep feed.
Replacement heifers may get too fat if fed a grain-based creep feed and have reduced milk production. This problem is less likely to occur when using forage as a creep feed. Creep feeding is best used when cows are poor milking, when pasture quality and quantity will not support optimal gains, and when ownership of calves will be retained through slaughter.
A variety of options unlimited grain, salt-limited grains and forage are available to improve the growth rates of nursing calves. If creep-fed calves are retained after weaning, it is important to get the calves adapted to a high grain diet shortly after weaning and finished out as calf-fed. If calves are retained in a stockering program, the creep-fed calves will gain weight more slowly than non-creep-fed calves and much of the weight advantage will be lost.
However, this may not occur when calves are placed directly into the feedlot at weaning. There is little benefit to creep feeding future replacement heifers unless grazing conditions limit their growth rate to less than 1 pound per day or Creep feeding can also reduce the incidence of sickness that often occurs shortly after weaning.
To get the full benefits of creep feeding added weight gains, reduced sickness at weaning and improved carcass marbling , you must retain ownership of calves through the feedlot phase.
Bagley, C. Carpenter Jr. Feazel, F. Hembry, D. Huffman, and K. Effects of forage systems on beef cow-calf productivity. Faulkner, D. Hummel, D. Buskirk, L. Berger, D. Parrett, and G.
Performance and nutrient metabolism by nursing calves supplemented with limited or unlimited corn or soyhulls. Anim Sci. Performance of nursing calves fed supplement with varying levels of protein. University of Illinois. Harvey, R. Creep grazing and early weaning effects on cow and calf productivity.
Ocumpaugh, Bill. Effects of creep grazing calves in Bahiagrass pastures. Rossi, J. Pringle, and J. Effects of sire marbling EPD and creep feeding on performance and carcass characteristics of Hereford calves. The Univ. Tarr, S. Buskirk, F. Ireland, D. Parrett, and L. The value of creep feeding during the last 84, 56, or 28 days prior to weaning on growth performance of nursing calves grazing endophyte-infected tall fescue.
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Table 1. Cost per pound of gain from creep feeding. Table 2. Feedlot performance and carcass traits of creep fed calves. Table 4. Calf and cow performance during the creep feeding period. Table 7. Performance of control non creep-fed and creep-fed calves. Table 8.
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