carla":ei8ti4sx said:
Thinking about feeding several bottle calves this year. How did you come out $ wise. What do you think was your cost per calf up till weaning off of the bottle? Was that 80 all at once or scattered through out the year? Sorry I'm full of questions but I have not had a chance to talk to someone that had raised that many. Thanks!!
Hey Carla...best of luck :help: as you go into your calves. I came out fine money wise...no cash on hand from it (go figure) BUT I was able to add nine more mama cows (two paired, five others heavy bred) to my beef herd in '04 -- got a pretty good deal on them as well. Results aren't typical
. Your actual results may vary
I figured feed costs at about $0.50 per calf per day until weaned. But I made some package deals (five to ten bags of milk replacer at a time) with the local feed store and also bought some when it went on sale. HINT: when Milk Replacer goes on sale, buy several bags (depends on how much you can properly store). Check their stockage levels and then get a raincheck from them for more so that you get the sale price for your next batch.
Mine were spread out across most of the year. But I had a big concentration from mid-JAN thru MAR with 20-something on bottles/weaning at one point. I raised mostly dairy calves, but my few beef bottle calves sold just as well as mine that were raised by their moms. I only lost three bottle calves out of the whole batch.
My youngest daughter did the best with hers: over $500 for a six month old calf!
Some keys that helped me succeed: (1) Great vaccination program by the dairyman that sold me his bull calves (2) All calves got colostrum (3) Clean pens (old Ostrich pens here were awesome!!!) and separation between groups for first couple of weeks with an additional isolation area (4) If one calf in a group started to scour, we gave the Spectam to all in that group (5) Deal, deal, deal with your CO-OP or feed store. Buy your creep in bulk whenever possible (6) Good pasture for the bottle babies that was separated from the other cattle and close to the house (let me check their progress and monitor my hernia boys that showed up) (7) Limited risk by not buying many calves from the sale barn (took NO chances at these prices on those that we used to think might make it if we vaccinated in the trailer immediately after purchase). Looked over all calves in the pen before they got in the ring at the sale barn. Didn't buy those that were penned with other sick calves, were nursing mastitis cows, or didn't stretch upon rising (along with other sick symptons).
Crowderfarms and Medic made some good points (although I did feed soy sometimes...couldn't see a significant difference) on feed in general. But here's the quote worth re-quoting (nope, not mine...I stole it ;-) ):
Talk cost per gain instead of cost per pound when buying feed. Don't matter if the feed/milk only costs you 20 cents/pound if it don't get you the weight gain you need. Similarly you don't need to spend $200/ton feed if you get the same weight gain from $150/ton feed.
I'd bet Crowderfarms was talking 20% USABLE proteins vice crude protein in the replacer. My creep was 14% protein a lot of times so I added to it some. But I've got another source that I'll be working with soon to custom blend feed for me. Yup it will cost a little more but I'll have a better cost/gain.
Hope this helps some, keep us posted on your successes. But you gotta keep doing the bottle thing through FEB to get the real feel for it (ha ha)... don't want no fair weather surrogate mama cows :roll: