Twenty-four Holstein bulls (137 ± 2.9 kg of BW and 117 ± 3.02 d old) were housed individually in pens (1.2 m × 1.45 m), and fed concentrate and straw in separate feeders. During the first 2 wk, half of the calves were fed the same concentrate either in meal (MF) or pellet (PF) form. After these first 2 wk, half of the MF calves continued to be fed MF (MFMF) and half received pellet (MFPF), whereas half of the PF calves were MF (PFMF) and the other half pellet (PFPF) for 3 additional weeks. During the entire 5 wk concentrate and straw intake were recorded daily, attendance (number of visits and duration) at the feeder (concentrate and straw) were recorded through a sensor placed at the access door to the feeder, and concentrate spillage around the feeder was collected weekly. Data were analyzed using a mixed-effects model with repeated measures split in 2 analyses; the first model for the first 2 wk contrasted MF vs PF, and a second model for the last 3 wk analyzed the data as a 2 × 2 factorial design (MFMF, MFPF, PFMF, PFPF). During the first 2 wk of study, apparent mean concentrate (4.90 ± 0.128 kg/d) and straw (0.30 ± 0.30 kg/d) intakes were not affected by treatments, however concentrate spillage was doubled (P < 0.05) in MF (5.9 ± 0.70%) than in PF (2.8 ± 0.70%) calves. Number of daily visits did not differ between treatments (14.3 and 15.4 ± 0.48, for MF and PF, respectively), but time devoted to each visit tended (P = 0.10) to be lesser in PF (9.2 ± 0.83 min) than in MF (11.1 ± 0.83 min). In the last 3 wk of study, previous experience did not affect apparent concentrate or straw intake. Previous experience had a positive impact on feed spillage when previous presentation form was PF; thus, concentrate spillage was similar between PFMF (2.5 ± 0.87%) and PFPF (2.6 ± 0.87%). In contrast, previous experience did not affect concentrate spillage when calves were initially exposed to MF, and MFMF calves spilled more concentrate (6.8 ± 0.87%) than MFPF calves (2.3 ± 0.87%). In conclusion, feeding calves a pellet upon arrival to a grower facility could have long-lasting positive effects due to a reduction on concentrate spillage.