3 week old orphan, will not take bottle

[raykour]

3 week old calf orphaned. He WILL NOT take a bottle. Full 24 hours from nursing he just threw me around like a rag doll. Another 12 hours and same results. Giving him fresh milk in the bottle, not formula. I have a young dairy heifer who is a first freshener with a month old calf that is in good shape so I thought I'd try him on her. Successful first nursing this morning and another successful nursing this afternoon.....some foam at the beginning of nursing but then he switched teats every 3rd suck it seemed like and bumped alot. Neither of these calves are at all tame and the area I have to keep them in is large. The heifer is tame, halter broke, etc. The calves are wild. I cannot separate them from one another due to lots of logistical issues at this time. Do I take the heifer out during the day, and then give him first chance to suck at night? Obviously she will let her heifer calf nurse anytime so if I leave them together overnight she can get her fill. Or, do I just get him a meal AM and PM with the heifer calf having 24/7 access. I could still get milk from the teat this evening after he was done, he just seemed like he was working awfully hard. I am hoping in a week or so she will allow him to nurse without my intervention but I don't want him to starve in the meantime.

 

[mjnetex]

If he was switching teats constantly he wasn't getting much milk, sounds like she doesn't have enough milk for two calves. Does she have a small udder? If that's the case, maybe you can find someone with a nurse cow to sell him to pretty cheap and be done with it. Craigslist maybe?

 

[raykour]

I'd prefer NOT to sell him, because I have over 12 heifer calves this year and only 4 steers. I usually keep at least 5 or 6 to feed and butcher for my customers.

We are still limping along and he is bright. Hopefully the increased ration are starting to catch the cow up won the milk and I see him picking at the alfalfa so maybe he'll start picking on some of the sweet mix soon that I feed the other two fall born calves in the same pen.