My wife and I have been bottle feeding two Holstein calves for a few days now with good success.
We're feeding a 20% fat, 20% protein, all milk non-medicated replacer.
We're mixing 250 grams of replacer in 1 quart of water twice daily (every 12 hours.)
Tonight after we finished feeding and one of the calves is doing his normal lunge at the empty bottle routine my wife made an interesting statement.
She said, "What I don't understand is, if this calf was feeding on its mother it would continue to feed until it was satisfied."
All of the research I've done says feed two quarts twice daily for a total of one gallon daily.
I don't want the little guy to go hungry but I don't want to over feed and cause problems either.
Is the calf really still hungry or is it the reduced water / higher concentrate method we are using that causes the calf to not "feel" as full?
What is a typical volume of milk a Holstein calf nursing on its mother might get?
I know she can sure as heck produce more than 1 gallon per day.
Is it safe to feed more than 500 grams per day?
We're feeding a 20% fat, 20% protein, all milk non-medicated replacer.
We're mixing 250 grams of replacer in 1 quart of water twice daily (every 12 hours.)
Tonight after we finished feeding and one of the calves is doing his normal lunge at the empty bottle routine my wife made an interesting statement.
She said, "What I don't understand is, if this calf was feeding on its mother it would continue to feed until it was satisfied."
All of the research I've done says feed two quarts twice daily for a total of one gallon daily.
I don't want the little guy to go hungry but I don't want to over feed and cause problems either.
Is the calf really still hungry or is it the reduced water / higher concentrate method we are using that causes the calf to not "feel" as full?
What is a typical volume of milk a Holstein calf nursing on its mother might get?
I know she can sure as heck produce more than 1 gallon per day.
Is it safe to feed more than 500 grams per day?