Bottle feeding calves

[Pat]

I know that when there is a poor eater (likely a runt) in a litter of puppies that a good technique to use until the pup grows out of it is to feed it with one other litter mate at a time. This way it won's be jostled totally away from the food and dogs tend to be competitive eaters, i.e. a picky eater will eat more and faster when comp=eting with a litter mate. After the eager eater is fed yo put in another eager eater and let the slower less aggresive eater compete with the second pup and so on. Works GREAT for dogs but what about calves????

Would it be easier to get calves to take a bottle if there were several calves getting botles at the same time versus just feeding one calf? Some calves are just not easy to get to take a bottle and it turns out to be a wrestling match. Some will follow you around like a puppy and MUG you in hopes of getting a bottle. Is there a llittle competition in the calves instincts like with puppies?

I don't have much experience with calves, just help a neighbor with his. My previous experience was in taking care of abandoned newborn rabits by feeding them with an eys dropper. (Never lost a single one)

If there is a competitive trait then it should be easier to feed multiple calves than a single or one at a time.

We can get good healthy young Holstein bull calves for about $50 but they are pretty young and not weened. It doesn't cost too much to get them up to 400lbs (good market weight) and even though they don't sell as high as beef cattle there is decent profit potential if the human effort is kept under control.

It is the reduction of human effort that has my attention. It really isn't much more trouble to clean and fill 10 bottles and cart to the pen than it is to deal with one. But if too many of the calves are hard to feed and have to be wrestled down then the incentive goes WAY down.

Thoughts? Ideas? I would be perfectly happy to NOT be involved if there is no reasonable solution but the $seem attractive if the feding problem can be minimized/solved.

TIA for any help.

Pat

[egon]

Pailbunters

Most times when calves are weaned from a milk cow they are taught to drink from a pail. No bottles involved.

They get the separated milk as the cream is good profit product.

Egon

[Pat]

Egon, Youd think cream was the high value part for sure. My sister took a school group on a tour of a large dairy and was disgusted to seehow much butter and cream they poured down the drain. Not enough market for it.

Anyway, it is good to know about bucket training. I will check into that. I do not personally know at what age the dairies sell their bull calves. I would guess that the earlier the better from their economic point of view. I wonder at what age (how early) they could bucket train the little bulls, on average.

Thanks again for the info. I believe my neighbor (source of most of my previous calf info) is probably also ignorant of bucket training. I sure hope the local daries bucket train their little bulls as that would sure make raising 6-10 of them at the same time a whole lot easier. I'll be checking into that.

Pat

[Bird]

Pat, I've had very little experience with bottle feeding calves, but my neighbor occasionally had a calf whose mother died during birthing or whose mother refused to let the calf suckle, so he was occasionally bottle feeding calves, using a powdered formula he bought and just mixed with water. At one time, he was bottle feeding 3 at a time, but no mention was ever made of the difference you're talking about. And these were newborn calves so he had to start with a bottle.

As for bucket training, I haven't had a lot of experience, but a little with both calves and goats. Just used a big enough bucket I could get my hand and the calf's or kid's head in at the same time, put my hand down in the milk with one finger up for the little one to suckle on, then gradually pull that finger down into the bucket so the little one was sucking the liquid directly from the bucket. And it didn't take very long to bucket train them that way.

[Pat]

Bird, Thanks. That sounds like it ought to work. I don't understand why some of the calves are so resistant to being bottle fed that yo have to wrestle with them and force them to get milk from a bottle. It is a hassle. Eventually they "get it" but for some it takes a while.

How young did you successfully bucket train? Is it likely that a newborn would work out?

Pat

[Bird]

Pat, I just don't remember how old the calves and goats were that I bucket trained that way. I think it was 2 to 4 weeks, but couldn't say for sure. As for wrestling them, that bottle nipple sure ain't natural to them, so usually had to hold them to get the nipple in their mouth the first few days, but once they got a taste, they stayed with it. Of course, I never worked with Holsteins; wouldn't think that would make a difference, but guess it might.

[egon]

The bull milk calves are often/or were disposed of at birth.

In days gone by there was a separate market for cream. I'm very far out of date now.

Birds on at about 2/4 weeks old to bucket train. Takes about two days or less. You just get your hand milk wet and let the calf suck on it and gradually work them down to sucking in the bucket.

Egon

[Airedale]

There are also buckets with multiple nipples, just fill the bucket and several calves can feed at the same time.

[wichiwichi]

Growing up on a dairy farm we used to bucket train all our calves. Starting on the second day of age we used the finger method as someone else explained. Most were trained within 2-3 days.

Some calves will never get it. We've tubed quite a few over the years until they got on feed.

No way I'd try and do more than one or two bottle calves. If you're talking 10 calves either bucket train them or get the buckets with nipples on them. You do realize morning and night every day of the week 24/7 they have to be fed and on a regular schedule? Holsteins especially are very sensitive to any changes in their schedule. They'll die just from looking at them wrong, [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] .

Also calves make alot of mess. Make sure you're prepared to deal with that as well. If they live you can make money on them but it's hard to keep them alive.