Originally Posted by
Summerthyme
We wean our dairy calves (25 heifers or so a year) when they're consuming a MINIMUM of 2# of grain daily. This is usually at 7 weeks, and we'd never wean before 6 weeks no matter what. The rare calf who has had problems (a navel infection or something) may not really start on the grain for awhile... and we'll leave them on milk longer while we fix whatever is wrong, and then wean when they're eating well.
If you don't want to feed grain, you NEED to feed milk or good quality replacer longer... at least 12 weeks... because their rumens don't develop well enough to digest hay or coarse forage until at least that age. We begin offering handfuls of hay at 8 weeks, but don't plan on it providing any meaningful nutrients until they're at least 3 months old.
If you can set up a really good rotational grazing arrangement, where they're given fresh forage daily (and not allowed to "back graze" the pasture they were on for at least 6 weeks), you probably can grow well grown calves without much grain at all.
I haven't ever raised a Holstein-Dexter cross, but I suspect you're just seeing the "dairy character" coming out, and they certainly won't ever end up as "smooth" bodied as fullbred beef calves will.
We have a Dexter-Jersey steer who is about ready to butcher (has an appointment in early November) and he's nice and smooth, finishing nicely, but isn't as blocky and wide as the purebreds are.
"early" weaning (as opposed to beef calves on mama who will nurse for 6 months, and who are getting a LOT of milk at 3-4 months... as much as 40# a day) is a compromise, because feeding whole milk or milk replacer at those levels is very, very expensive. Of course, these days, feeding grain to get fast growing calves (we need our heifers to breed to calve the first time at 24 months, so they MUST be growthy, with good condition, or they simply won't reach puberty in time) is insanely expensive. It's getting ugly.
Summerthyme