Bottles vs Buckets
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hillsdown
Well-known member
Great article Alison thanks for sharing it..
hillsdown
Well-known member
Nothing wrong with bucket feeding Dun ,I know many many dairies that still do it. However once you are set up with a bottle feeding and calf hutch system you can reap the benefits as far as optimal growth, as well as many many health benefits of the calves as was stated in the article. Also it is not just bottle feeding that makes the calf but keeping everything clean and sterile if at all possible.
If you have one calf that you have to bottle feed, do what you want . IMHO this article was directed more to mass bottle feeding of calves.
If you have one calf that you have to bottle feed, do what you want . IMHO this article was directed more to mass bottle feeding of calves.
hillsdown
Well-known member
I have to add as well that the people that bought the dairy after us ripped out all of our igloo hutches ,sold them and made mass pens where they would bucket feed 15-20 calves altogether in one pen. Like they did in Holland on their dairy.. :roll:
It was a freakin disaster. I was called in to help redesign their set up when they went from my less than 1% death rate of calves per year to their death rate of calves more than 35% in a year..
Maybe I was lucky or maybe I knew what I was doing.. ;-)
It was a freakin disaster. I was called in to help redesign their set up when they went from my less than 1% death rate of calves per year to their death rate of calves more than 35% in a year..
Maybe I was lucky or maybe I knew what I was doing.. ;-)
TexasBred
Well-known member
I've seen some producers that could make just about any system work.....and others that couldn't make any system work. Just poor management all the way around and very little to do with the pros and cons of the system. Personally I'm about as worthless as they come at raising baby calves.
backhoeboogie
Well-known member
I like rigging individual alleys out of panels, putting a bottle rack on the end, mixing it all in a huge tank with a drill, then filling bottles out of a valve. Open the gate and let the boogers into the chute/alley. Distribute the bottles and go finish getting read for work. Open the gate and let 'em out, reverse the hand truck and pick up all the bottles, rinse them in the deep sink with a peroxide solution and flip them to dry.
Better than that is a nurse cow turned out to pasture with 4 calves after they have been nursing on her for 3 days or so and all have her scent.
What I hate is one bottle calf with no wet nurse cow
Buckets don't work for me but I aint going there again. We've already been there too many times already.
Better than that is a nurse cow turned out to pasture with 4 calves after they have been nursing on her for 3 days or so and all have her scent.
What I hate is one bottle calf with no wet nurse cow
Buckets don't work for me but I aint going there again. We've already been there too many times already.
shorty
Well-known member
That was an interesting article, I have seen similar articles before . I start about 30 holstein bull calves a year. Before they are a week old we train them on a bucket , we haven't had problems that we know of , our calves always seem to do good , I don't know of any dairies in the area that bottle feed.
regolith
Well-known member
bottle racks!!
You know, when folks talked about bottle-feding multiple calves I though it was just an expression... or a very, very dedicated calf rearer.
I use gravity-fed teated multi-calf feeders. You can get them with separate compartments, and I have one of those but the calves do tend to swap themselves from teat to teat anyway, so now I only use it the same as the other feeders and it's heavier to handle than them. The first year I reared my own calves (on milk powder) I used the compartment feeder with the 4-day old group of calves and discovered that calf size is no indicator of how fast they feed.
The first dairy I worked on bucket fed, then trough fed as the calves got older. Second had individual pens with single-teated buckets used, then a group pen and trough feeding for older calves. Every dairy I've worked on in NZ has used multiple-teated feeders, with sometimes a bottle used to feed calves that are on their own, or supplement newborns with colostrum or train the little ones to drink from a teat.
The bucket fed calves had a lot of problems with illness, but it was also my first year farming and I hadn't a clue what I was doing and maybe the boss wasn't a calf rearing expert.
Nurse cow is best. No need to clean anything (yeah, I get sick of the washing-up at calving/calf rearing time).
Rearing 40 - 50 calves, plus 100 to 4 - 7 days only, I had one bottle, two five-teat feeders, two twelves and a ten teat.
Setting up for rearing 65 calves of up to 300 born, I now have two bottles plus a tube attachment for one of the bottles, four 5-teat feeders and the 2 12-teat and one 10-teat feeder still. Each of the larger feeders is used twice without washing, keeping the calves in two groups of around 30 - 32. The small feeders are for teaching babies and small groups, and sometimes for making up the right number of teats if I have a group over twelve.
Sometimes I get a calf with a lump on its jaw, like they've cut the inside of their cheek with thier teeth and iota
ack - you';re goonna have to put up with teh typoos, my computer ahs gone crazy and won't let me fix it and if I try any more i;m gonna get upset... waht was I saying...?
Oh yeah, about calves with littel jaw infections, one of my vets told me it weas really, really important to clean teh teats every day to prevent those.
You know, when folks talked about bottle-feding multiple calves I though it was just an expression... or a very, very dedicated calf rearer.
I use gravity-fed teated multi-calf feeders. You can get them with separate compartments, and I have one of those but the calves do tend to swap themselves from teat to teat anyway, so now I only use it the same as the other feeders and it's heavier to handle than them. The first year I reared my own calves (on milk powder) I used the compartment feeder with the 4-day old group of calves and discovered that calf size is no indicator of how fast they feed.
The first dairy I worked on bucket fed, then trough fed as the calves got older. Second had individual pens with single-teated buckets used, then a group pen and trough feeding for older calves. Every dairy I've worked on in NZ has used multiple-teated feeders, with sometimes a bottle used to feed calves that are on their own, or supplement newborns with colostrum or train the little ones to drink from a teat.
The bucket fed calves had a lot of problems with illness, but it was also my first year farming and I hadn't a clue what I was doing and maybe the boss wasn't a calf rearing expert.
Nurse cow is best. No need to clean anything (yeah, I get sick of the washing-up at calving/calf rearing time).
Rearing 40 - 50 calves, plus 100 to 4 - 7 days only, I had one bottle, two five-teat feeders, two twelves and a ten teat.
Setting up for rearing 65 calves of up to 300 born, I now have two bottles plus a tube attachment for one of the bottles, four 5-teat feeders and the 2 12-teat and one 10-teat feeder still. Each of the larger feeders is used twice without washing, keeping the calves in two groups of around 30 - 32. The small feeders are for teaching babies and small groups, and sometimes for making up the right number of teats if I have a group over twelve.
Sometimes I get a calf with a lump on its jaw, like they've cut the inside of their cheek with thier teeth and iota
ack - you';re goonna have to put up with teh typoos, my computer ahs gone crazy and won't let me fix it and if I try any more i;m gonna get upset... waht was I saying...?
Oh yeah, about calves with littel jaw infections, one of my vets told me it weas really, really important to clean teh teats every day to prevent those.
regolith
Well-known member
well, now you all know just how bad my typing really is.
backhoeboogie
Well-known member
regolith":i6sb8oor said:
It can be comprehended just fine.
hyp7
Member
So It is just better to use bottles insted of buckets?
backhoeboogie
Well-known member
hyp7":30euzaoc said:
Yes, in my opinion. Others will disagree. We all go through a lively discussion on it every spring here in the forum. The suction causes a fold of skin to unfold and direct the milk into the stomach, instead of the rumen.
If the calves have foam on the sides of their mouth, you're doing the right thing (in my opinion and I aint no biologist or vet so my opinion don't count a lot to some).
hyp7
Member
My two calves started on bottles and it took almost double the amount of time to drink then it does with a bucket. So I have been using a bucket now for a couple weeks. Both of the calves get lots of foam while feeding. Also Ive been able to get them to take some sweet feed from my hand but not out of the feed bunk. How do you get them to drink water from the water buckets? I have had fresh water from day one and have never seen them drink from it at all, they do sniff it but wont drink.
regolith
Well-known member
Slower is better when it comes to drinking milk - up to a point.
hyp7 - your calves are still very young, or they're getting plenty of milk? Generally if they're not touching either the feed or the water they don't need it, but by three weeks old they should be into it.
Have you used the same type of feed successfully before? I changed brands one year and couldn't convince the calves to eat it, so went back to the stuff I'd always used which is very palatable for them.
hyp7 - your calves are still very young, or they're getting plenty of milk? Generally if they're not touching either the feed or the water they don't need it, but by three weeks old they should be into it.
Have you used the same type of feed successfully before? I changed brands one year and couldn't convince the calves to eat it, so went back to the stuff I'd always used which is very palatable for them.
Keren
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TexasBred":1b47ovhq said:
This is what is most important, in my mind.
Fact: anatomy theory tells us that suckling is more ideal than drinking.
Fact: calves can be reared successfully on bottles
Fact: calves can be reared successfully on buckets
Fact: some people are so good at it that you couldnt tell the difference between bucket and bottle
In all honesty, I use bottles because of the theory behind it. Anyone who knows me even a little bit will vouch for me being a staunch bottle supporter. But, in practicality I gotta admit bucket feeding is pretty dam easy. But the simple fact of the matter is regardless of the theory and research, plenty of cattle have been raised successfully on buckets, and there will be plenty more to come.
As an aside, are automatic calf feeders used very often in the US? They became available here oh, maybe 6 years ago? The calf goes into a little chute type arrangement, a scanner reads his electronic ear tag, and the computer tells the machine what that particular calfs daily allowance of milk is, how much he has already had today, and how much more he is allowed to drink. Then, the right mixture of powder and milk is automatically mixed up, warm, and the calf has access to it from a teat.
