Bottle Calves

[BottleRanch]

Hi I have been raisingg bottle calves and I have gotten real curious about how you all get the bottles ready ready for every feeding. I know you people who have these big dairies have a lot of bottle calves and I am just curous on how you get the bottles ready every time and how you keep them clean. I have a big problem on keeping on my bottles clean.

 

[certherfbeef]

Growing up on the dairy we taught them to drink from a bucket right away. Lots eaiser to keep clean. Mix the replacer in a 5 gallon bucket and feed out of a 2 1/2 gal bucket.

 

[BottleRanch]

See I have thought about that but I have never liked it that much so I havn't done it yet. Also I really don't have enough to do that. I assume that you ahve a big wash tub/kitchen sink in your barn, I have to mix mine in the house and then go to the barn.

 

[Kelly]

My husband set me up with putting a laundry sink & sprayer in the garage that is hooked up to our water heater. Next to it I have a cabinet that keeps all my supplies in & a countertop that I can let the buckets & bottles dry on. The counter comes in real handy to use for so many things. This set up has worked great & best of all I can keep the mess out of the house. Make sure you keep the milk powder in sealed containers to keep any rodents out. If I had hot water in the barn I would move my set up out there, but I don't so this works just fine - it is just a little farther to carry the buckets or bottles.

 

[jerry27150]

never used a bottle on them for more than a day, then had them drink from a pail also. saves a lot of time & pails are easy to rinse out. just let them suck two fingers & keep fingers apart enough to let milk suck through between them & when they start to drink for a couple seconds pull fingers out & after doing this a few times they will start sucking without fingers

 

[carla]

I bought one of those buckets with 5 nipples. Kind of expensive, but I think it paid off in the long run. They have to work harder to get the milk and build up more saliva to help there digestion. I have just weaned 2 calves off of one and they look better to me than my last bottle calves.

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