What can you tell me about Bottle Calves?

[BarefootMom]

and I would never never EVER buy a bottle baby from a sale barn. There are too many diseases they can pick up and it would make me wonder why they are being sold at the sale barn. The only people I know that will buy from a sale barn (on bottle babies) are very well versed in all the meds it may take to get them healthy.

I would prefer to buy them from the dairy itself.

When you buy from a sale barn you don't know what kind of conditions the calf is coming from. you don't know if it got it colustrum, or whether or not it has been established on the bottle yet. Also depends what type of bottle or bucket they were using.

 

[Haviris2]

What can I tell you about bottle calves? They're flipping cute!!

My current one,

My baby from last year,

And the year before that,

Of course these girls are all beef calves. I've only ever bought two bottle calves, a heifer and a bull, at 1 week and 3 days. I did not get them from their original breeders, but they weren't sale barn calves. I was 15 at the time and both calves did really well!

I bought my jersey cow as an adult from a dairy, she is the sweetest most docile cow you'd ever meet, even though I didn't raise her. So I don't think you 'have' to start w/ a baby. Never had a holstein, but jersey's have the best temperments.

 

[herfrds]

Haviris2 I had a holstein brown swiss cross with an attitude. Always had trouble with her. Crawled fences, kicked all the time, head butted you etc.
Lost my last Jersey to a ruptured bowel. We think she got punched by a steer or heifer she was with, DH had to put her down.
My current Jersey is just the biggest sweet heart, just gotta watch out for the tail and nose. She snotted me once down my cheek when I went to pour her feed into her bucket.

denasfarm I paid $1800 for my current Jersy. She was a bred heifer. Never calved before.
She did kick me pretty good on my first attempt to hand milk her, got my Surge milker going and use that she likes it better.

 

[OtterCreekRanch]

I have bought a lot of sale barn bottle calves. I have raised up to 10 at a time before. I have never bought from a source other than that sale barn (though I have raised a few calves our cows could not/would not). You do take a risk with sale barn calves, but generally if you pick a calf that is very active with a clean butt and not hunched up or snotty, you will be ok. I also keep antibiotics on hand just in case. Any bottle calf is a risk, but with making good selections I have lost very few bottle calves. I have bought them as cheap as a $1 each and was actually able to raise them up and sell them for a profit. Otherwise there isn't a lot of profit in dairy calves because of the cost of the milk replacer. I prefer to raise beef calves, but I am not looking for a calf that I will be able to milk later on down the road. We never keep our bottle calves. We enjoy them until weaning, sometimes a little after, and then they move on.

Generally you will have to teach sale barn calves to suckle a bottle, but it is usually not very hard. You just get them standing up between your legs with their heads out in front of you...get the nipple in their mouths and squeeze their muzzles in order to make the milk come out. After they haven't eaten all day most healthy calves are pretty eager to figure out how to get some warm milk in their tummies. It usually only takes a couple of feedings before they are pros.

Here is a couple of the last calves we raised at the back door begging for their milk. It was raining and they stood out in the rain hoping someone would come feed them again even though they had just eaten a few hours before.

And a short video of them after they first started eating grain.

 

[hlf1996]

Dont you get attached to the calves? I dont think I could raise them and then just sell them or butcher them. But I am a softy when it comes to animals. I would buy one for milk though.

 

[Katy]

Quote:
I get attached to all my animals whether it's one of my cats and dogs or one of my cows or calves, but with our cattle it is how we make our living and pay our bills so it's just a part of how it is.

 

[OtterCreekRanch]

Quote:
It is hard to feed and care for any baby animal who considers you it's momma and not get at least a little attached to it. The way I look at it is I know at least for the time it is here it has the best care possible and lives a good life.

When a calf is born a bull it is almost guaranteed to become someone's dinner within it's first two years of life. You generally only need 1 bull for 20-30 cows, and some people (like us) don't even use a bull at all. His odds aren't looking too good the day he is born. That is one reason I love raising show cattle....even though almost 50% of our calves are going to be slaughtered before their second birthday, I know them being sold as show steers they will be pampered and loved in the short time they have.

But when you raise any animals for profit you really have to separate yourself from the emotional aspect of having them be a part of your life and you always have to remember that at the end of the day they are part of our livelihood and not part of our family.

That being said, I do have cows here that will never be sold and will die here either naturally or we will have the vet put them down. I will not allow them to live their last few hours of life in fear not knowing where they are or what is going to happen to them.

 

[Haviris2]

Quote:
That's why I try to only raise heifers! I can get as attached as I want, and they get to grow up and contribute to the farm!