AudieWyoming":3fk44ha2 said:
Jeanne
I know you have to be careful, cattle just can't utilize some forms of mineral and it's just passed through, but if I ever knewhow that works, I don't now. I am guessing your or organic number is the more accessable portion.
I fed various qualities of alfalfa through the winter (and drought!) I am sure much of that extra protein just passed on through but I think thats where a lot of the larger BW (and twins) came from.
Its light I need to go run the cows. Sorry we hijacked the thread but this turned into an interesting topic.@
I am quite certain that your higher protiens are where the large BWs come from. About 10 years ago, we had access to split chickpeas (which we got for free). Thinking that that was great feed for our cattle, we fed it to our girls. Probably fed them about 4-5 lbs/day. We had the highest BW's we have ever had, topped out at over 150 lbs on a straight hereford bull calf (C-section) and 2 135 lb calves, one out of a heifer (pulled) and another out of a 3 year old(unassisted). We've never had weights quite like that since. Sure, we get the odd big calf, but not like that year.
As far as twins, I have to disagree. They are decided at conception, could be that the good grasses at that time have something to do with it, but I'm not sure about that. I think that's more a genetics and/or chance thing.
Getting back to feeding calves. The only calves we tube are ones that genuinely won't/can't suck, and for that I use the technique in the original post. Not calves that I have to get on a bottle or onto another cow, and I know they CAN suck.
We've used numerous methods of getting a bottle calf onto a cow, and a older calf onto a bottle. One I've found that works great for transplanting an older bottle calf to a cow is to leave them hungry for about a day, then to give them just a bit of a bottle. Have seen this one work numerous times, just give them 1/2 pint or less and they are so hungry, that all they are thinking about is sucking something, and they forget that they didn't want to suck the cow.
As for getting an older calf onto a bottle, and by older, I mean anything that has sucked a cow for more than a couple days, although usually the older they are the more difficult they are. About all you can do with these ones is to let them go hungry and keep trying. I've seen some posts about using syrup or sugar on a nipple, and have never tried that, I think I might though. Another tip for these calves is to use the
soft rubber/latex nipples that fit over a pop bottle or even use a black lamb nipple, these nipples are way more like a REAL teat than those big fat harder rubber ones on most bottles and pails. Once you have the calf used to the idea of being handled by a human, and this is a big part of why they won't suck, and sucking these softer nipples you usually don't have too much trouble changing them over to the other type. And yet another tip is to back them into a corner and straddle their shoulders. I will often pull their head right up into my chest and hold it there firmly while trying to get them to suck. Anything to imitate/trick them into the idea that YOU are now MOM. After all, you have to remember you are dealing with an ORPHAN here, and one that has just lost everything it knew, and you can't exactly explain things to them!!
