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Coffee Shop
Help with new calves please!!!
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<blockquote data-quote="Son of Butch" data-source="post: 1408971" data-attributes="member: 14585"><p>Dairy calves are often weaned at 6-8 weeks as long as they are eating a couple of pounds of a textured calf started </p><p>and drinking clean fresh water readily available and most started nibbling at calf starter feed at 7-10 days.</p><p></p><p>The problem is your calves weren't started on a bottle but allowed to start on their mamma's then yanked off them </p><p>way too early. Some will reject the bottle bcs they know it's unnatural. You may have to skip the bottle and teach </p><p>them to drink milk from a bucket. First you have to get them to suck on your fingers... easier said then done with a </p><p>stubborn beef calf upset from being separated from it's mom and the herd. Some will just clamp down on your fingers </p><p>and refuse to suck at all. As you teach him to drink also teach him to eat calf starter. </p><p>A Sweet textured starter feed is easier to get them to start eating than pellets. Once he's eating the starter you</p><p>can wean him if he still won't drink his milk.</p><p></p><p>The calf is fighting you out of fear, he doesn't understand you are trying to help him... so frustrating.</p><p>Hopefully getting the taste of milk on his tongue from the bucket will make it easier to teach him to drink from a pail </p><p>than sucking on a rubber nipple of the bottle.</p><p></p><p>p.s.</p><p>Brown Swiss dairy calves are notorious for being difficult to teach to drink milk from a pail. So stubborn.</p><p>Seems like they'd sooner die than drink and my gut tells me your red baldy ain't gonna be easy either.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Son of Butch, post: 1408971, member: 14585"] Dairy calves are often weaned at 6-8 weeks as long as they are eating a couple of pounds of a textured calf started and drinking clean fresh water readily available and most started nibbling at calf starter feed at 7-10 days. The problem is your calves weren't started on a bottle but allowed to start on their mamma's then yanked off them way too early. Some will reject the bottle bcs they know it's unnatural. You may have to skip the bottle and teach them to drink milk from a bucket. First you have to get them to suck on your fingers... easier said then done with a stubborn beef calf upset from being separated from it's mom and the herd. Some will just clamp down on your fingers and refuse to suck at all. As you teach him to drink also teach him to eat calf starter. A Sweet textured starter feed is easier to get them to start eating than pellets. Once he's eating the starter you can wean him if he still won't drink his milk. The calf is fighting you out of fear, he doesn't understand you are trying to help him... so frustrating. Hopefully getting the taste of milk on his tongue from the bucket will make it easier to teach him to drink from a pail than sucking on a rubber nipple of the bottle. p.s. Brown Swiss dairy calves are notorious for being difficult to teach to drink milk from a pail. So stubborn. Seems like they'd sooner die than drink and my gut tells me your red baldy ain't gonna be easy either. [/QUOTE]
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Help with new calves please!!!
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