Bottle Calves

[jaydill]

A friend and I are thinking of starting a small bottle calf business in our summers between college. We don't have any particular breeds in mind, just whatever we can get. We're trying to figure the little details of it all, and so far have two propositions.

Would a commercial breeder be interested in either...

A. A roughly 3 or 4 month old calf which has been weaned off of replacer and onto a good starter feed, with grass/grass hay at all times?

or...

B. A roughly 5 - 7 month old calf, also bottle fed, which has been getting a little feed and has been out on pasture for about two months?

Assume in both of these situations that the calves are in good health, vaccinated, etc. Another question we have is if breeders would be interested in these types of calves, would they be just as feeders? Or would you be looking to implement them into your herds? Would you be interested in bidding on a calf from either of these situations if they came through the sale barn?

Thanks,
Jay

 

[3MR]

Uh Oh, You used the words breeder and sale barn in the same post.

PS: If you are doing all the initial hard work bottle feeding, why not just feed them out and sell them to the yard yourself?

 

[jaydill]

Uh Oh, You used the words breeder and sale barn in the same post.

PS: If you are doing all the initial hard work bottle feeding, why not just feed them out and sell them to the yard yourself?

Well the thing is, our time frame doesn't allow for us to feed them out. We're hoping we can do a good enough job initially that the calves might go on to perform in the herd.

 

[DOC HARRIS]

A friend and I are thinking of starting a small bottle calf business in our summers between college. We don't have any particular breeds in mind, just whatever we can get. We're trying to figure the little details of it all, and so far have two propositions.

Would a commercial breeder be interested in either...

A. A roughly 3 or 4 month old calf which has been weaned off of replacer and onto a good starter feed, with grass/grass hay at all times?

or...

B. A roughly 5 - 7 month old calf, also bottle fed, which has been getting a little feed and has been out on pasture for about two months?

Assume in both of these situations that the calves are in good health, vaccinated, etc. Another question we have is if breeders would be interested in these types of calves, would they be just as feeders? Or would you be looking to implement them into your herds? Would you be interested in bidding on a calf from either of these situations if they came through the sale barn?

Thanks,
Jay

Jay - ".....don't have any particular breeds in mind, just whatever we can get" - THAT is your first mistake, because you will be hit hard at the market with mongrel calves. The A and B paragraphs are too specific - you will have too high a cost factor just attempting to find them. They would have to be backgrounded, as insurance for your short-term investment, which would minimize your net returns and cut into your bottom line profits (net returns)!

As to whether a breeder would be interested in incorporating them into their herds - - -that possibility is precluded in your first statement regarding "no particular breed".

My advice: find a Registered breeder who would be willing to have you work for him through the summer (which is more than half over now!) AND REALLY LEARN SOMETHING which will benefit your College experiences. "Bottle Calves" aren't the answer!

DOC HARRIS

 

[msscamp]

Uh Oh, You used the words breeder and sale barn in the same post.

PS: If you are doing all the initial hard work bottle feeding, why not just feed them out and sell them to the yard yourself?

Well the thing is, our time frame doesn't allow for us to feed them out. We're hoping we can do a good enough job initially that the calves might go on to perform in the herd.

Generally speaking, bottle calves never do as well as calves raised by their mother. Because of that (and other factors of why the calf became a bottle calf in the first place), bottle calves are rarely kept as replacements. Plus there is the issue of unknown genetics when these calves are purchased at the sale barn. If you're set on bottle calves - in my honest opinion - you would be farther ahead to raise them to a certain point (determined by research done through talking to your local sale barn and finding out at what age and weight they sell best), and then selling them. Another factor to consider is that parts (I don't know how widespread it is) of Texas are in drought and people are having to sell to survive, as a result of that prices are probably going to decline if they haven't already.

PS Tom4018 brings up a very relevant point (see following post), so I'm qualifying my post to as it pertains to beef cattle.

 

[tom4018]

Bottle calves preforming in a herd? :lol:

Happens all the time with a dairy farm.

 

[Rustler9]

jaydill,
If you are going to do something like this, you might be ok if you find a dairy farmer who would sell you calves that are half beef/half dairy. Example: some dairy farmers breed their first calf heifers to various breeds of beef bulls such as Angus etc. These black calves usually make good steers which should do ok at the sale barn and the heifers usually make ok commercial cows to keep for breeding. I'm sure there'll be folks who say otherwise but my dad's herd began many years ago with heifers that he bought from a dairy and kept as brood cows. These cows raised a big calf due to the abundance of milk they gave from their dairy (usually Holstein) ancestry and when they were bred back to a beef bull usually Hereford or Angus in our case they produced a nice calf. Just something to think about.

 

[Beefy]

jaydill-
you will be far better off just getting a parttime summer job. you will make far more spending money than messing with bottle calves and not have the responsibility of the calves. if you get a job on a farm or ranch (I worked for the school equestrian team) you will learn a great deal and not have the risk to worry with. i highly recommend this.

on bottle calves you have to have a really close eye. half the time the calves are deathly, havent had colostrum, or are too dumb to live. i definitely wouldnt want to bottle feed anything any longer than i had to and certrainly not for more than 2 months! anything you sell unless you get hooked up with a dairy is going to be fed out to slaughter if it is sold at a salebarn.

 

[jaydill]

Thanks for all of the helpful responses. I have been looking at the possibility of internships, but were I unable to participate in one, this would've taken it's place. Well thank you again! I will be rethinking this.

 

[Beefy]

my job at school started out as an internship (required for my animal science degree) and i liked it so i kept working long after it was up. i started to work for the school dairy but decided otherwise mostly b/c i didnt want to be on call pulling giant holstein twins in the middle of the night when i could be ...drinking lol. plus the equestrian barn was closer to my place and i felt like i knew a lot more about cows than horses so it was a good learning opportunity. oh yeah plus all the girls on the equestrian team were another deciding factor.

 

[DOC HARRIS]

oh yeah plus all the girls on the equestrian team were another deciding factor.

Beefy - I just don't seem to be able to understand what "Girls" and an education have in common! :roll:

DOC HARRIS

 

[Beefy]

simple Doc. girls are educators.

 

[DOC HARRIS]

simple Doc. girls are educators.

eh - - - maybe, but just look at what their STUDENTS are! Not too much to work with!

DOC HARRIS

 

[Beefy]

God bless 'em they try though.