Bottle Babies

[rnh1]

Who can advise on bottle feeding newborn calves?

[regolith]

Fill teated bottle with warm colostrum. Go to calf. Stick teat in its mouth. When it stops sucking or the bottle is empty you're done. Repeat, at regular intervals.
Anything else you wanted to know?

[cow pollinater]

#1 CLAUSTRUM. get claustrum into them as soon as you can if they haven't already had it.
Don't give into the temtations to cut a huge hole in the nipple to make them eat faster... sometimes a small notch is okay. Lots of head butts with not alot of drinking is the key that it's time to open things up a little. Start by opening the air vent and then by opening the nipple if that doesn't work.
Keep it down at or around knee level depending how tall you are. If you go straight up over the head they tend to get some in their lungs.
Get tem switched to a bucket or bottle holder as soon as possible to make it easier on you.
Otherwise, you can kind of follow the advice on the bag and be okay.
What kind of calf are you dealing with?

[James T]

Who can advise on bottle feeding newborn calves?

Rn, it helps to know why you feel inclined to bottle feed the calf. What's going on with the cow?

[denvermartinfarms]

i feed over 300 a year so i can probaly help. but can you tell some more about what exactly you are doing and what you need to know. hope i can help

[Massey135]

A bucket is your best friend

[backhoeboogie]

A bucket is your best friend

I respectfully disagree. Bottles have a more effective closure of their esophageal groove. Remember that’s the muscular fold that channels milk into the appropriate stomach (abomasum). Good closure is healthier than poor closure. Vacuum created with the bottle helps versus the static head in buckets. I am not a person who is raising 100 dairy calves and I can take the time to bottle feed when required. Opposing opinions to bottles have been expressed by knowledged folks in this forum. I simply disagree with buckets.

Back in the 70's we swapped to buckets and had bad results. I did not know why at that time. We went back to bottles and I have stuck with them since. These days it is nurse cows for the most part. Occasional bottles for interim feeding. Beef calves and not dairy calves.

[Alan]

I agree Backhoe, last year I raised my only bottle baby, Hereford. She was a twin who got wet, cold and weak while mom was delivering her sister, so she went to the barn and to a bottle. A Hereford breeder, who I have a lot of respect and know has a lot of knowledge told me to stay away from buckets or I would have problems including the heifer developing a milk belly.

Alan

[Massey135]

Turns out your hereford breeder is not too credible. Why you would chime in this post when you obviously have little to know experience w/ the topic??

Starting them on a bottle is prolly "better" but at what cost. My reference was feeding 20 calves at a time - mixing it up in 5 gallon buckets sure beats making 20 bottles. Dairies all over bucket feeding calves in crates. These are $500 heifers the day they're born - doubt they're inflicting long term damage.

[Alan]

I didn't say someone couldn't bucket feed or that buckets weren't used. This Hereford breeder that gave me advice does have creditability, he gave me good advice on more than one occasion and all I'm doing is passing along his advice to me, which worked very well for me. If I had to do it again, which I hope I don't, I would not use a bucket.

[alisonb]

A bucket is your best friend

[backhoeboogie]

Starting them on a bottle is prolly "better" but at what cost. My reference was feeding 20 calves at a time - mixing it up in 5 gallon buckets sure beats making 20 bottles. Dairies all over bucket feeding calves in crates. These are $500 heifers the day they're born - doubt they're inflicting long term damage.

There was a time when you could get dairy bulls for $5 back in the 70's. Dad did way more than 20 back then. We cycled them through the nurse cows and onto bottles. It was a lot of work but it didn't hurt me any. (remember I am the one who swore I would never own a cow?)

Now days it is a matter of me picking up a few beef splits from the sale barn to graft onto a nurse cow. Usually they are a few days old and have had colostrums when I pick them. If I were to lose one, I would essentially lose all credible profit from grafting them on to the nurse cow. Beef splits are not cheap. If the cow is expected to calve in a couple of days and the sale is Friday, I could be feeding for up to 5 days. That has happened.

From my personal experiences back then, through the years, and up to now, I would never use a bucket. dun would disagree with me, as you do, and that is okay. I stated my reasoning and it is okay if you disagree with me. I would offer the same advice to anyone else, including the person who created this thread.

[Massey135]

A bucket is your best friend

I guess some just enjoy waking up making bottles better than some.

[backhoeboogie]

A bucket is your best friend

I guess some just enjoy waking up making bottles better than some.

It is just a matter of pouring them up, placing them in racks, opening chutes to let the calves in. Pick them up a short time later, let the calves out and rinse them. Do you rinse the buckets out? There's not a whole lot of difference.

There are machines you can buy that have multiple nipples and automatically mix for you. I aint that big. I am small potatoes and never anticipate bottle feeding more than a dozen at a time for the rest of my life. Once the calves are grafted onto the nurse cows, they go out to pasture.

[Massey135]

I've seen those machines, backhoe, I even looked into them in 2010. There was one that had barcode eartags that would mix replacement on demand for each individual calf as they approached. It ran bout $10k

The last set of bottle calves I raised, I bottle fed for bout a week then went to mixing in 5 gallon buckets and pouring it into a rubber trough. 8 calves per trough. Once they were bout 2 weeks old I would pour the sweetfeed (started with calf manna then a textured feed) over the milk like cereal. They caught on quick. I weaned that group off replacer completely at 5 weeks. I've tried many many methods. This worked by far the best for me. Be careful carrying 5 galling buckets into the pens (poor design on my part) its like a shark tank!