I know it is crazy but I found a market for bottle calves. So what would be a good way (Easiest on cow/calf)to turn a calf into a bottle baby. I would ony want to do this on heifer calves but not screw up my cows.Would you let thim nurse a day then pull them off the cow? Or nurse once A day/ bottle feed once a day? I might have to keep the calves a couple weeks so Iwant it to be fairly easy.But they want the tame bottle calves. Thanks
how to create a bottle calf
- Thread starter RAWCJW
- Start date
Help Support CattleToday:
holly heifer
Well-known member
:shock: Oh yea, with a 50 lb bag of the good milk replacer
costing $75.00 a bag, I want to order a whole trailier load
of bottle calves. :lol2: raised 6 of them last year and one this year----- I try really hard to let MOM make the milk. :roll:
costing $75.00 a bag, I want to order a whole trailier load
of bottle calves. :lol2: raised 6 of them last year and one this year----- I try really hard to let MOM make the milk. :roll:
Let's see if I have this figured out. You have pople that want bottle calves and you're planning on taking a perfectly good cow that's doing her job and selling the calve. Since it's figured that a cow costs over $325 a year to feed, etc., I hope you can sell those bottle calves for $600-$700. That's what they would bring as weaners..
They are bringing 5-600. for 2weeks old. Sounds crazy I know but the cute factor and petting zoos must be whats driving it. It,s only heifer calves bulls only bring around 300. A bootl heifer brings more than a 4 yr old bred cow! :roll:
cowgirl Ibara
Well-known member
Will you be saling them at 2 weeks old it sounds?? The prices we have up here for 2 week olds is around $200 and the 1 day olds are $50. The farms up here charge you for ever day the calf stays on the property since they are feeding and managing.
Well if your saleing them off as bottle babies you can either milk the mom and feed the calves the first day off a bottle using mama's Colostrum. Or have the calves nurse right off mom. Big producers bucket or bottle feed thier calves because mom is used for milk production and the calves butt the udder. This could cause damage to the udder resulting in mastitis.
But like Holly Heifer said milk replacer is really expensive now and if you will have the calves a couple of weeks they should be started out on a replacer. But putting them on a bottle isn’t hard at all. Once they get their mouth on the nipple, up and off they go.
Well if your saleing them off as bottle babies you can either milk the mom and feed the calves the first day off a bottle using mama's Colostrum. Or have the calves nurse right off mom. Big producers bucket or bottle feed thier calves because mom is used for milk production and the calves butt the udder. This could cause damage to the udder resulting in mastitis.
But like Holly Heifer said milk replacer is really expensive now and if you will have the calves a couple of weeks they should be started out on a replacer. But putting them on a bottle isn’t hard at all. Once they get their mouth on the nipple, up and off they go.
J&T Farm
Well-known member
Around here bottle babies were a dime a dozen, we were buying them for $25 day old - $75 for a couple weeks old. A few years ago you could buy them a couple days old for $10 for bulls and $25 for heifers. They are mostly dairy or dairy cross calves. I would make sure you had a buyer before I pulled any beef calves off there mommas.
Interesting...if you can get $600+ for a calf less than 2 weeks old, you could probably do it profitably.
I wouldn't be interested in selling my heifer calves, but if you want to, then go for it. Here's an idea, pen two cows in a small pen, one cow with a bull calf, one cow with a heifer you want to sell. Try to have both calves similar ages, but at least one must be newborn. Pull the heifer calf after she's 3 days old, put her on a bottle and out of sound of momma. There's a good chance the mother of the heifer will allow the other calf to nurse, at least that's been our (unintended) experience when we pen two mothers in close quarters with their babies.
The bull calves will wean off with extra weight, and mommas which had their babies removed shouldn't have any udder problems.
An alternative would be to just pull the calf at 3 days and let the cow get bred back ASAP. That will get you calving year 'round but give you calves to market as bottle babies all year. Most beef cows that lose their baby at 3 days will be cycling much quicker than if the calf was on them. You'd probably have close to a 10 month calving interval on the cows that you sold the calf and let the cow go dry.
I wouldn't be interested in selling my heifer calves, but if you want to, then go for it. Here's an idea, pen two cows in a small pen, one cow with a bull calf, one cow with a heifer you want to sell. Try to have both calves similar ages, but at least one must be newborn. Pull the heifer calf after she's 3 days old, put her on a bottle and out of sound of momma. There's a good chance the mother of the heifer will allow the other calf to nurse, at least that's been our (unintended) experience when we pen two mothers in close quarters with their babies.
The bull calves will wean off with extra weight, and mommas which had their babies removed shouldn't have any udder problems.
An alternative would be to just pull the calf at 3 days and let the cow get bred back ASAP. That will get you calving year 'round but give you calves to market as bottle babies all year. Most beef cows that lose their baby at 3 days will be cycling much quicker than if the calf was on them. You'd probably have close to a 10 month calving interval on the cows that you sold the calf and let the cow go dry.
