Question about calfs?

when I took my kids to the fair today we went to see the animals at the FFA Childerens barn and there was a calf that was about 2 weeks old, (according to the paper above that had the calves name and the owners name) they had solid food for him and water, is a 2 week old calf even old enough to be eating solid food? Should'nt he still be drinking his moms milk? The poor thing looked so thin.
Answers:
Calves.you have a question about calves. They start eating grass and hay within 2 days of being born. What color was the calf? If it was a black and white calf it was probably a Holstein calf and they are taken from the mothers when they are a day old. They are then (if it is a nice dairy, if it isn't a nice dairy they are run thru the sale yard) fed the colostrums and raised from cow鈥檚 milk that will not make human grade. The dairies will usually cull (run them thru a sale yard) the bull calves but will raise the heifer calves for replacement cows on the dairy. There are other dairy breeds such as Jersey's (brown with black muzzle, hooves) and Guernsey鈥檚 these are brown %26 white.
Personally myself I would let the calves nurse for 3 to 4 days to get all of the colostrums and then wean the calf and then the cow could be returned to the dairy herd for milking. I don't know why the dairymen do the whole cow/calf thing the way they do but if the calf is fed a high protein diet (like one they would get if they were still nursing its mother) it will grow up just fine and not have any problems.
I have had orphaned foals that were two weeks when the mother died and they are already eating by then and you can raise them on milk pellets, hay, and water. The reason the calf looked so thin is because they just don't start putting on weight until they are about 6 weeks old especially if they are of the dairy breed. And also the sire to the calf may have been a calving ease bull for 1st calf heifers and these calves are born small and thinner than non calving ease calves.
Another things is to you really can't free feed them a lot of different feeds because it can upset their digestive tract. It is better to keep it simple for a calf so young until it has reached about 2 months of age. Then you can start varying the feed and giving it more. You wouldn't over feed a human child would you? Or give it too many different foods at once if you did you would certainly have lots of problems with your child.baby animals are no different. You can feed a human child solid foods right away..and you can opt to feed it baby formula over breast milk it is the same with baby animals. Why would it be any different than the way we take care of human babies? So for all of the above reasons...no the calf was probably not too thin just young and it will continue to look that way for a few more weeks since it is probably of the dairy breeds.

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I'm no expert, obviously, but I have been in 4-H for 13 years so I'll give it a shot. The answer partly depends on what type of solid food it was. If it was hay then it may not have been for the calf to eat, could have been cushioning. Another factor to consider is where is the mother. Maybe she died, if that's the case then the owners will have some sort of formula that will contain some of the same nutrients. Most people that take animals to a fair know what they are doing, i.e. have been doing it all their lives, if not they have leaders that do. One last thing calves are usually thin looking, it's because they have big bones. Even full-grown cows look thin sometimes but that also has to do with what breed they are. I hope I offered some sort of insight.