Any profit on bottle calves??

[HOSS]

We have a jersey nurse cow. When she calves we buy a jersey bull calf at a dairy farm for 45.00. They let their bull calves suckle for 3 days on momma for the colostrum and a good start then they sell them. We put the bull calf with the nurse cow cause she has more than enough milk for two. If we get unfortunate (rarely) and have a cow that rejects her baby it goes on the nurse cow and jersey bull (now steer) gets weaned early. We have very little input cost in the jersey steer and he sells at the sale barn at 200 to 300 pounds. Along with the sale of the half beef / half jersey calf and the sale of the jersey steer it more than pays for keeping the jersey cow around. We did some bottle feeding with the kids but there is too much input cost to make it work.

 

[Keren]

Basically my poddy kids/lambs (sometimes calves/foals/pigs) are what is paying for me to go to uni.

So yes, you can make a profit on them.

The ones I make the most money off are the fullblood Boer kids. I get them for free or up to $50, it costs me $80 to raise them on the bottle and grain until 4mths old, then I sell them does for $300, bucks for $500. Crossbred kids I dont pay for, I get them free, does I end up selling on for $150, bucks are wethered and sell for about $80 to $100, so I only just make it back with them. Lambs are about the same as the wethers. But I just got a dairy doe and a few more on the way, which will cut the feeding cost down to about $50 per lamb/kid.

 

[Anonymous]

Keren,
Are you milking the does out or letting the kids suck?

 

[Keren]

That will depend on the number of lambs I get. They will start arriving in May and will keep arriving at least one every month until December. The kids come in bursts, every few months.

Those figures I said were using replacer. With the dairy does, most likely I will milk them out rather than fostering them on, takes a little more work but theres a few advantages; I can tell exactly how much milk each kid/lamb is getting and hence pick up on sickness etc; I can regulate how much the little boogers get and there will be no bullying (I dont give them over 1L and they do fine); plus there is less wear on the does udder - I've gotten bitten and really sore teats on does when they have more than two kids, particularly if the doe is not good at 'rotating' the kids, and she feeds em all at once they fight over the teats something shocking, and you end up with a messed up udder. Some does work it all out though and will only feed two, then go and find the other two and feed them.

If I'm feeding calves, foals or piglets obviously there is no choice but to milk and bottle feed.

 

[Moprofit]

The calf starter works does work pretty well. Now I want to stress that you are not going to get rich raising bottle calves but I have made nice profits on them. Just last year I got 5 jersey bull calves at a sale barn for $18.00 for all 5. Sold them 4 months later for a little over $670.00 Now this is exception not the rule. I only had a little over $225.00 in them. Market timing is important. There are other posts about those $5.00 holstein bull calves at sale barn. He is correct about nice profit from these but like he said "if you know what you are doing". There are many ways to cut some costs. I know that replacer does cost and if you are fortunate to have goats milk it is very good to use. I have paddocks, shares on hay, and also access to whey which helps later to pack on lbs. Don't over do the whey! I also custom mix my feed because I also run feeders and stockers. :nod: