Table 1.

Effect of feeding from birth to weaning on calf performance and milk yield potential

Duration/age	Feeding regime	Response	Authors
Birth to weaning	Calves suckling milk twice daily vs calves fed MR	Suckling calves produces more milk in their first lactation	Bar-Peled et al. (1997)
Day 1 to d 43 of age	Ad libitum feeding of milk by artificial nipples vs milk feeding by bucket at 10% of body weight (BW)	Feeding by nipples increased weight gain with no detrimental effect in solid feed intake after weaning	Jasper and Weary (2002)
2 to 8 wks of age	Increasing energy and protein intake in MR	Rate of development of mammary parenchyma increased	Brown et al. (2005a, 2005b)
Until 6 wks of age	Warm MR (35°C) for ad libitum intake or cold MR for ad libitum intake or restricted warm MR 4 L/d in 2 equal feeds. Fresh concentrate was fed for ad libitum intake during MR regime	At weaning calves offered warm MR ad libitum were 30% heavier than the restricted group with mean growth rates in excess of 1 kg/d.	Bleach et al. (2005)
5 to 50 d of age	Milk fed vs MR feeding	BW and all skeletal parameters higher in milk fed calves, reached puberty earlier by 23 d and increased fat-corrected milk yield (MY) at first lactation	Shamay et al. (2005)
Birth to 44 d of age	Fed colostrums and whole milk at 20% of BW for 23 d and reduced to 10% of BW for 16 d and compared with calves fed colostrums and milk at 10% BW for 44 d	Greater BW gain and structural growth in calves fed at 20% of BW	Khan et al. (2007)
3 to 56 d of age	Conventional MR (20% CP, 20% fat) or intensive MR (28% CP, 18% fat)	No effect of MR feeding on first-lactation performance, but heifers on intensive high solid MR at high feeding rate calved 27.5 d earlier	Raeth-Knight et al. (2009)
0 to 56 d of age	Group 1 was fed 0.44 kg of DM of a 21% CP, 21% fat MR daily for 42 d, group 2 was fed 0.66 kg of DM of a 27% CP, 17% fat MR for 42 d, group 3 was 0.66 kg of DM of a 27% CP, 17% fat MR for 28 d and group 4 was fed 1.09 kg of DM of a 29% CP, 21% fat MR for 49 d.	Calves in group 1 had lower ADG and calves in group 4 had highest ADG from 0 to 56 d, the least ADG from 56 to 84 d. No differences in BW at 84 d in group 2, 3, and 4 calves.	Hill et al. (2010)
4 to 60 days of age	Calves fed on MR or whole milk for 30 min twice daily. From weaning until 150 d fed on similar ration, and at 150 d half of heifers in each subgroup was fed with additional 2% protein for 320 d of age	BW at weaning and ADG until weaning were greater (3.1 kg and 0.074 kg/d) in whole milk than MR group. Nursery treatment and protein feeding had no effects on growth rates in pre-pubertal period, but first lactation MY was higher, in whole milk heifers than MR fed heifers	Moallem et al. (2010)