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Mob Feeding bought calves
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<blockquote data-quote="regolith" data-source="post: 846659" data-attributes="member: 9267"><p>Well, yes and no. I usually start them in a shed in groups of ten - if they're born to my herd they are grouped in the order of birth - I start a new pen when there's enough in the first and so on. The ones I bought were penned in groups of ten as they were bought, which had much the same effect of grouping them by age.</p><p></p><p>Once they're on grass, I run a mob of about 30 - 33, so I'll probably have an older group and a younger group. Once I start weaning (I wean weekly following a criteria of minimum weight, minimum age and development of body capacity, minimum age is eight weeks), I split the weaned calves into a separate mob and once the size of the group has dropped sufficiently I'll put all the milk calves together.</p><p>There's a big variation in size within the groups - some of the calves are pure Jersey, some pure Holstein and others are crosses. They all compete well; I've never had to pull one from the group though I do wean individually not as a group so if one is taking a bit longer to reach weaning weight she simply stays on milk a week or two longer than the average.</p><p></p><p>With the type of teat I use I consider it important to have all, or nearly all the teats on the feeder used every feed. They soften and let the milk flow faster as they age, and I got caught out one year with having had a group of five or six on a ten-teat feeder - they use the centre teats by preference and if one latches onto an less-used teat they can't drink as fast as the others.</p><p></p><p>I didn't think to mention it at first, since it's illegal to sell calves less than four days old in NZ, but no calf is added to an older group until at least four days old. They're given colostrum and trained on the feeder in a separate shed during that time, and the bought calves someone else would have done the same.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="regolith, post: 846659, member: 9267"] Well, yes and no. I usually start them in a shed in groups of ten - if they're born to my herd they are grouped in the order of birth - I start a new pen when there's enough in the first and so on. The ones I bought were penned in groups of ten as they were bought, which had much the same effect of grouping them by age. Once they're on grass, I run a mob of about 30 - 33, so I'll probably have an older group and a younger group. Once I start weaning (I wean weekly following a criteria of minimum weight, minimum age and development of body capacity, minimum age is eight weeks), I split the weaned calves into a separate mob and once the size of the group has dropped sufficiently I'll put all the milk calves together. There's a big variation in size within the groups - some of the calves are pure Jersey, some pure Holstein and others are crosses. They all compete well; I've never had to pull one from the group though I do wean individually not as a group so if one is taking a bit longer to reach weaning weight she simply stays on milk a week or two longer than the average. With the type of teat I use I consider it important to have all, or nearly all the teats on the feeder used every feed. They soften and let the milk flow faster as they age, and I got caught out one year with having had a group of five or six on a ten-teat feeder - they use the centre teats by preference and if one latches onto an less-used teat they can't drink as fast as the others. I didn't think to mention it at first, since it's illegal to sell calves less than four days old in NZ, but no calf is added to an older group until at least four days old. They're given colostrum and trained on the feeder in a separate shed during that time, and the bought calves someone else would have done the same. [/QUOTE]
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