To Creep or not to Creep?

     Creep feeding is defined as “a method of providing nursing calves with the opportunity to eat feed that the cows cannot access”. We will discuss the methods of creep feeding along with the benefits and disadvantages.

       Based upon the definition, creep feeding can be any source of feed that is not accessible to the adult mothers. This includes pasture access, dry hay, silage, and most commonly grain. Creep feeders are often gated off areas that have spaces small enough to prevent mature cows from entering but large enough to allow calves full time access.

     Creep feeding allows the calves access to additional calories, in return, allows for higher weaning weights and more uniform calf crop. Additional calories can make up for environmental stressors such as a low milk producing mother, poor forage quality and increased maintenance energy requirements. Grain creep feeding allows calves to be introduced to eating dry feedstuffs from a bunk which will be beneficial down the line when calves are weaned. Grain creep fed calves often show lower stress levels at time of weaning because they are not faced with the learning curve of eating from a new device along with the separation from mother.

     When making the decision to creep feed or not you need to analyze your operations mechanisms such as marketing strategies, environmental effects and your labor input. In a study conducted by Martin et al. in 1981, they discovered that male calves that were creep fed were heavier at weaning and 1 year of age than their non-creep fed peers. Heifer calves that were creep fed were heavier at weaning than their non-creep fed counterparts but lost the weight advantage by 1 year of age. Creep feeding replacement heifers actually showed a detrimental effect to the lifelong production as a cow. These cows showed a decrease in the number of calves weaned, calf birth weight, calf 120-day weight, calf 210-day weight and the lifetime productivity. Calves of creep-fed cows were significantly lighter at weaning if the calves themselves were not creep fed. When calves of creep-fed mothers were also creep fed they still had a tendency to be lighter than their peers whose mother was never creep fed. This phenomenon could be due to epigenetics, the change of how genes are expressed due to environment. Therefore, creep feeding replacement heifers negatively affected the production of the cow herself and her calves. The environmental effects of creep feeding where studied by Victor V. Carvalho et al. in 20193 in a meta-analysis. They found that creep feeding decreased the forage intake of calves but had no effect on milk intake. Therefore, the mother’s dry matter intake will not be decreased by her calves’ creep feeding habits. They also found a decrease in fiber digestibility in extreme levels of creep grain intake by calves, therefore grain intake should be monitored closely to ensure calves are not over-consuming grain. Creep feeding calves will likely decrease the opportunity for a  compensatory growth period in the feed yard which subsequently is detrimental to overall feed efficiency of the feedlot stage.

     In conclusion, if you are planning on selling both male and female calves at time of weaning for the purpose of terminal market animals, creep feeding may be beneficial to capture more weight per head at time of marketing. Heifers that will not be sold until age 1 or heifers that will be used as replacement heifers should not be creep fed due to the no long term growth benefit and possible detrimental epigenetic effects for subsequent generations.

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