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.