The objectives of the study were to (1) determine if milk replacer (MR) plane of nutrition (PN) influences Holstein bull-calf daily duration of non-nutritive sucking (NNS) as well as daily calf starter (CS) and water intake from ages 6–64 d and, (2) determine if automated NNS measures can be used as an additional measure to CS intake to determine if calves are ready for weaning. At age 1 d, calves were randomly assigned to MR treatments of either High (HPN; n = 18; 20:28 DM fat:protein; 830g and 1080 g DM/d from ages 1 to 10 and 11to 51 d, respectively) or Low (LPN; n = 15; 20:20 fat:protein; 445 g DM/d ages 1–51 d) PN. All calves were fed milk bottles twice daily at 0700 and 1600 h until step-down weaning. Weaning was initiated at age 51 d by removal of the PM-MR feeding and completed at age 57 d with the removal of the AM-MR feeding. Water and CS were offered ad libitum and measured once daily. Daily-NNS was measured by event-loggers (1 Hz, HOBO State Data Logger UX90–001M) that recorded when each calf manipulated a dummy-nipple. Repated data were analyzed using REML PROC MIXED procedure in SAS. Throughout the experiment, LPN-calves drank 1.5 × more water than HPN-calves (P < 0.05). Prior to weaning, LPN-calves consumed more CS than HPN-calves (P < 0.01), except for ages 32–41 d. During and after weaning the LPN calves consumed over 18% more CS than HPN (P < 0.01). After weaning was completed, HPN-calves doubled CS intake compared with pre-weaning (P < 0.05). The LPN-calves performed more daily NNS at ages 13–17 d (P < 0.01). Around weaning, HPN-calves tripled NNS from pre-weaning measures (P < 0.05), while LPN calves nearly stopped their NNS behaviors (P < 0.01). These results indicate that PN influences nutritive and non-nutritive oral behaviors. Calves fed LPN are not motivated to perform NNS once one MR feeding is removed from their diet. In contrast, weaning-initiation increases NNS in HPN-calves, but full-removal of MR stimulates CS intake in HPN-calves. In addition, HPN-calves may not acclimate as easily as LPN-calves to step-down weaning; therefore, alternate weaning strategies for HPN calves may need to be considered and tested utilizing NNS measures.