Daisy452":2iyjfhma said:
msscamp":2iyjfhma said:
You're probably going to have a battle when transitioning a 10 day old calf from his mother to milk replacer,
Actually most dairies seperate the calves from the cows the first day of birth and bottle fed them from then on, starting with the first bottle as colstrum. They do this because they dont want the calf damaging the utter of the cow. The calves are kept in a small individual "calf dome". They are feed 2-3 times a day by a bottle or a bucket.
You need to get out more. If you visit 10 dairys you'll find 10 different methods of calf raising including calf housing. Of the 13 dairys I used to service, 1 used claf dome, several used a small calf shed with a small outside area, one used a small shed with the calves tethered with baling twine and the rest use mob pens with one large calf shed. Calves are seperated anywhere from birth to 4 days of age, the majority being birth. But as in everything else in this business, there are regional and differing managment variations in all aspects.