Milk is one of the largest costs of raising dairy calves. Therefore, increasing growth performance and efficiency of dairy calves is very important. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of adding a protein based pasteurized milk balancer (PMB) on the growth performance of dairy calves over the summer months. A total of 90 Holstein heifers were randomly assigned at 1 d of age to 1 of 3 treatments. The treatments were (1) 7.6 L/d of pasteurized milk (CONT), (2) 7.6 L/d of pasteurized milk supplemented with a PMB (PMB), and (3) pasteurized milk supplemented with a PMB and fed at a reduced volume amount of 5.4 L/d (LESS). The calves were fed milk 3 times a day and allowed ad libitum access to 20% CP starter. Calves were weighed at birth and measured every 2 wk until 8 wk of age for body weight (BW), hip height, heart girth circumference (HGC), and hip width. Starter intakes were measured weekly. Milk intake of calves was reduced to one-third of their milk allowance at 7 wk and they were weaned at 8 wks. Data were analyzed using Proc Mean of SAS with calf as the experimental unit. At 8 wk, BW were similar (P = 0.18) for all calves on the CONT, PMB, and LESS treatments (81.2, 84.9, 84.1 kg of BW, respectively). Average daily gain (ADG) was similar regardless of treatment and averaged 0.78 kg/d over the 8 wk. Total starter DM intake was similar for all treatments (P = 0.71) over the 8 wk, resulting in similar overall feed efficiency among treatments (P = 0.53) at 0.44, 0.44, and 0.41 kg of starter per kg of gain for CONT, PMB, and LESS, respectively. Hip heights at 8 wk tended (P = 0.10) to be greater for LESS compared with CONT (97.6 and 96.0 cm, respectively). There also tended (P = 0.09) to be a difference in HGC with PMB calves having a HGC of 104.4 cm compared with 102.3 cm for CONT, with LESS calves being intermediate at 103.4 cm. Hip widths were similar between treatments (P = 0.26). At 8 wk of age, supplementing calves with PMB tended to increase the HGC of calves, and feeding calves a reduced amount of milk with PMB added tended to result in taller calves compared with when calves were fed only pasteurized waste milk.