The present study was conducted to evaluate the optimum age of alfalfa hay consumption and studying of physical form of starter on performance and animal behavior of Holstein dairy calves. For this purpose, fifty Holstein dairy calves (25 females and 25 males) were used in a completely randomized design. At age of d 3, calves were randomly allocated to one of the five treatments consisting of: control ( CON ) calves were fed ground barley starter feed without any forage provision and the 3 other treatments consisted of the same starter feed plus 15% chopped alfalfa hay ( AH ), fed at 2 nd ( AH1 ), 4 th ( AH2 ) and 6 th ( AH3 ) weeks of age and last treatment was starter containing 31 % ground barley with 31 % whole wheat ( GBWW ). Calves received milk in trial fixed and equal to 10% of BW/D (half in the morning and half in the evening). At birth, all calves were fed enough amounts of colostrums daily for the first 3 d. All calves were weaned 56 d. The study finished when calves reached 73 d old. Calves were individually housed and bedded with sand. Diets and water were fed ad libitum throughout the trial. The starters were formulated to Isonitrogen and Isocalory. Ruminal pH, ammonia, and utrient digestibility were measured at 4, 6, 8 and 10 weeks. Results indicated that daily starter intake in AH1 was significantly greater in comparison to others and CON. The data in pre weaning showed that average daily gain for groups that fed alfalfa at 2 nd week was significantly greater than other groups but there was no significant difference at post-weaning period. There were no significant differences between treatments for feed efficiency at pre-weaning and post-weaning periods but there was a significant difference between treatments over the entire trail. There were significant differences in ruminal pH between 8 th and 10 th weeks of age for AH treatments compared CON. NH3 concentrations decreased over time and calves fed alfalfa had higher concentration of NH3 at week 6 than calves fed CON treatment (P 0.05). Calves fed AH treatments spend more time for rumination, standing and eating than CON treatment. Then effects of replacing ground barley grain with whole wheat were similar for starter intake, average daily gain (ADG), feed efficiency, and digestibility of neonatal dairy calves. Calves fed ground starter had significantly greater pH at 4 th week of age comparison to GBWW but calves fed GBWW had a significantly greater pH at weeks of 8 th (P 0/05) and 10 th (P 0/01). In Conclusion, results of the current study showed that feeding chopped alfalfa hay at wk 2 to the starter improve performance and stimulate rumination. Key Words : Calves, Age, Alfala, Physical form, Wheat, Performance