Eureka!

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Keren

Keren

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My little patch of earth, Perth, WA, Australia
I have always wondered why most people around my area cannot raise poddy calves/lambs/kids. They either die or are unthrifty, poddy bellied, etc.

And I have never had those problems, and I could never figure out why people thought it was so hard.

Just had a eureka moment when I realised there are three main brands of milk replacer available around here. Looking at the protein and fat levels, one is 24:16, the next is 24:17, the one I use (and not many people do) is 28:21.

Guess that explains it pretty well.
 
I assume you are meaning bobby calves?? I was looking at our replacer here and if I am reading this correctly ours reads 22/12. And this is purina...the best money can buy here! Why in the heck would this be so much lower than yours??! You had better just send me some of yours to try out!! :lol2:
 
I know what you mean we've tried about a dozen different brands of powdered milk & finally settled on Palastart "blue" which the Jersey calves thrive on. they are fed 2xdaily up to 4wks than 1xdaily up to 8-10 weeks I also give a mix of rolled barley, wheat pollard & pellets ad lib
 
yes, poddy = bobby calves. I cant think why your expensive stuff should be lower than ours :???:

Loch, the one I use is the Palastart calf milk replacer, although our feed store is has the Palastart Lamb and Kid I just use the calf for all animals. The calf stuff I get is in a green bag ... the lamb and kid is red. I've never seen a blue version ... What is the protein/fat on it?
 
Keren
I cant tell you just now will look at the bag in the morning, the rlpb vet after he came out & did a pm on one of the calves had never heard of that brand he went away did some research & found that the Palastart "Green" is just slightly better than the "Blue" we already knew that but the blue & green is for 2 different age groups we were told that we should feed the blue for several weeks than switch over to the green once the calves went once daily feeds.
If I have a orphan foal to hand raise from birth I will give them their first feed using cows colstrum its even better if you can get the milk from a cow off the same property as the foal after that I give them cows milk with some proxatin (sp?) added over several days than after a few weeks wean onto Denkivit I'll usually add extra powdered milk to their lucerne/oaten feed mix.
 
actually that does make sense that it is better for older calves, because I know some people who say that it is too rich for newborn kids from day one. I feed divetelact for a week so I wouldnt know if that is accurate or not, but it does say on the bag that it can be used from birth

also whats the price of the blue relative to the green (in your area?) atm I am paying about $88 a bag for palastart green, but I know some of those other milk replacers can go down to $45 a bag, I guess that is why people use them, and why they get poor results
 
Just checked the bag this morning & it reads Fat 20% : Protein 24% it cost us about $78 bag & we can go through 2-3 bags in a week depending on how many calves we're rearing. I'm pretty sure around here the Palastart is the cheapest apart from the Denkivit which from memory was around the $48 - $60 mark, there is another brand of milk replacer can't remember the name of it but it sell for $120 bag about 12months ago. I really didn't like that one as the powder wouln't mix with the water. I'm really pleased with the results of the Palastart so wouldn't change to another product & we're thinking of to buying it by the pallet but you don't really save that much to make it worthwhile
Jane
 
huh, thats interesting. Around here Palastart is the dearest, apart from DiVetelact which is $150 for a 5kg bucket. :shock: I'd love to raise them completely on it, but its too dear

The one I have had REAL trouble mixing, and I hated it for that, was the My Lamb lamb and kid replacer. I also didnt get great results growth wise. Palastart has given me the best results - the only thing that does better than that is the fresh goats milk - which I plan on using 100% once my does come into their milk. But they put on ridiculous amounts of weight on goats milk, they can tolerate higher amounts and they dont ever seem to scour on it
 
Here on the coast Palstart is mid-range for price, from memory its made/packaged at Nowra
I often wondered about getting a couple of milk goats & milking them & feeding the milk to the calves I think it would help the newborn calves to digest the milk easier but my father would have kittens if I brought home a goat :D If your into a more natural approach giving the calves some dolomite in their milk several times a week helps with scours.
 
thanks for the dolomite idea. I often get what I call 'happy scours' the lamb/kid/calf gets a bit scoury but it doesnt affect their appetite or behaviour, and clears up by itself after a little while.

I know what you mean about your dad and the goat lol but if you sit down and do the figures on it you might surprise him. I can feed a lactating dairy doe on $1 to $2 a day depending on her production level, and they will produce at least 4L of milk a day, peaking around 7L a day. For me, I raise lambs and kids more than calves, one dairy doe can feed at least 4 lambs/kids each day.
 
Keren":3k75gsib said:
thanks for the dolomite idea. I often get what I call 'happy scours' the lamb/kid/calf gets a bit scoury but it doesnt affect their appetite or behaviour, and clears up by itself after a little while.

I know what you mean about your dad and the goat lol but if you sit down and do the figures on it you might surprise him. I can feed a lactating dairy doe on $1 to $2 a day depending on her production level, and they will produce at least 4L of milk a day, peaking around 7L a day. For me, I raise lambs and kids more than calves, one dairy doe can feed at least 4 lambs/kids each day.
Click to expand...

How many calves can a dairy doe handle? Just 1?
 
I dont do poddy calves often but when I do, I have good success with 2L twice a day, total of 4L a day so yes, I would budget for 1 calf per dairy doe, although some of the really top genetics could almost feed two, but you would be pushing it.
 
Had to get a bag of Opti-pak it has Fat 20 % Protein 23% The younger calves seemed to enjoy it though a couple of the older calves turned their noses up at the taste. It doesn't seem to mix up as good as the Palastart, although I didn't have the water hot enough so that may have been the problem.

If I was to rear calves on goats than I would need about 50 milking goats, this year we're batch calving got about 50 cows to calve in January :help: the young bull we used has sired 12 calves so far for 4 bulls & 8 heifers those 50 cows are all in calf to him.

When giving dolomite the rate is 1 desertspoon full each twice a week as well as 2ml of seaweed concentrate on the same days as you give the dolomite.
Usually after 7 days calves will get a "stress" scour once they are started on either bucket or bottle feeding. Scourban is another good product to use & should be available from your local vet.
 
show time":2ybn4o0w said:
I assume you are meaning bobby calves?? I was looking at our replacer here and if I am reading this correctly ours reads 22/12. And this is purina...the best money can buy here! Why in the heck would this be so much lower than yours??! You had better just send me some of yours to try out!! :lol2:
Click to expand...

Low fat content....low price.....Fat is very expensive.
 
Actually Keren there are a couple different replacers we can buy for our calves. One is a milk starter replacer it is meant for babies after their colostrum up to a week or two old and then they are to go to straight milk replacer. The starter is very high in fat it is close to what you use but I think it is 28-28-24. I haven't had one in the house since last Jan so I can't remember the exact ..And then you move on to a minimum of 20-20 -20..The idea being that by this time they should be on calf starter grain with at least 18 percent.

But yes, it is expensive; us here in AB more so than a lot of places and it is made here,,the one I choose to use..But like they say all things are relative.

I have yet to have a problem with bottle feeding .. :)
 
have you tried or heard of denkavit
I have used it on bobby calves and they grow out really good
Not sure of the fat content or protein though
 
Denkavit is 24-17.

Havent tried it personally because we dont get it in the feed stores here. We basically get Palastart (green but not blue), My Lamb, Veanavite, and one other one which I cant remember the name of just a generic sort of milk powder.

Incidently, I grabbed a tin of DiVetelact out of the shed today and had a look, its 24 protein and 30 fat. Bit different :???: But it works GREAT
 
Love DiVetelact we used it for rearing an orphan foal, ended up buying a 20kg bag of the stuff the foal grew to be a towering 27.5" that thought he was a dog & loved nothing more than to come inside & snooze laying down on the floor in front of the fireplace :lol2:
 
I love DiVetelact, I start everything off on it for up to a week before putting them on palastart. We dont get the 20kg bag here, just the big bucket (brain fart, its either 5 or 10kg). I'd love to feed everything on it completely but its just too dear ...
 
I got the bag through an equestrian shop & it was a special order not something that was kept in stock. I'm constantly amazed at the amount of stuff there is for horses & virtually nothing for cattle, sheep, goats ect.
 

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