Jeanne is right. The health risk would be staggering with that many calves. I get 10 to 30 a year to raise on nurse cows. There are dairies that I would not take a calf from if they gave it to me because their "bugs" and mine don't work. I have 3 or 4 dairies that are my go to ones, because I know their calves have had colostrum, and are not scouring when I get them, and the bugs are compatible with what is on my farm. Right now I am getting some jersey x holstein heifer calves off a dairy. He is changing his direction a bit. Due to space limitations, he has decided to only raise up the heifers from his better cows and try to do a better job with them than to try to raise all the heifers. Plus, replacements are at give away prices so it doesn't pay to raise them up then sell a few as springers like it used to do. He is now breeding beef to the lower 1/2 of his herd. The calves that he has had that are beef crossed have been bringing $150 - $200 and more at the stockyard lately. Mostly they are angus or simmental crosses. I prefer the simi crosses. The angus x will show too much dairy and their calves also have a finer bone and build. The resulting calves do not do as well as feeders. The simi cross ones tend to have more bone and beefier build.
I want the dairy cross heifers so that I will have more nurse cows for when I retire. I don't like paying $200 for a baby calf, but if that is what they are bringing in the future then I will. I am paying $60 to $100 for the heifer calves now and they are just as healthy as they can be. But I will definitely be getting as many from this particular farm as I can handle. Have 14 in the barn right now; 2 on bottles, but the rest are on cows. Poor Mara has to deal with the 2 shifts with the littler calves then her older bigger ones. The good thing is they are liking the grain real well so I will be able to wean them in another month or so. 2 are holstein bulls that I got off another dairy that I like but they just sold out in Dec. so that option is now gone. I am not the biggest fan of the holsteins but when you need a calf, a healthy one is the number one requirement. And that was before I started getting calves from this other dairy.
It's alot of work until you get them situated and they learn the routine. Add to that dealing with all this cold, then the recent rain and muddy slick conditions because the water isn't soaking in due to frozen ground, it makes it hard to keep them clean and healthy. I have more than I usually do but don't want to turn down these heifer calves because when he gets to the end of this run, then there will be very few because they will be beef crosses and the dairy ones he will be keeping.
