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