Only Dairy Calves bought still bottle fed?

[devuono311]

Ok, I've helped raise beef cattle before, but always from grain started calves. My question is. I am looking to get started for as low cost as possible as far as calves, and I know the younger they are bought, the cheaper( Yes I already know, "But then you gotta feed em too") Anyways, I have now been told by three different local people that you cant buy beef calves still on a bottle, they just dont sell them. However, I know you can obviously buy bottle feeding dairy calves. So my question, is this true, if so why? Or are they just blowing somke up my rear-end? :help:

 

[Kingfisher]

Ok, I've helped raise beef cattle before, but always from grain started calves. My question is. I am looking to get started for as low cost as possible as far as calves, and I know the younger they are bought, the cheaper( Yes I already know, "But then you gotta feed em too") Anyways, I have now been told by three different local people that you cant buy beef calves still on a bottle, they just dont sell them. However, I know you can obviously buy bottle feeding dairy calves. So my question, is this true, if so why? Or are they just blowing somke up my rear-end? :help:

Yes.............No..........its more complicated than it seems. You can go the sale barn and buy lil calves .

 

[piedmontese]

sometimes the salebarns will have beef calves that r young and they pulled them off of old cows,or they have feedlot calves which u definately want to stay away from.i have bought baby beef calves off the cow and bottled them but u better be strong as he!! or have some help bcause they r gonna b wild until they get used 2 u and realize that u got there milk.

 

[MF135]

There are always <1 mo old beef calves at the sale whether their mother died and the owner doesn't want to deal w/ an orphan or the auctioneer thought the pair would bring more split. Don't waste your effort on the bottles, most any calf will drink milk relplacer right out of a bucket.
That being said, unless your time is worth absolutely zero, you are better off buying small weaned calves ~150-175lbs. The baby calf purchase price + milk replacer cost and some starter feed (not to mention your labor) will run you very close to the purchase price of a weaned calf.

 

[chippie]

Where do you live? If there are any dairys in your area, contact them about buying day old bull calves.

If you buy at an auction barn, look for calves that are bright eyed, alert and are diarrhea free. A new calf will still have it's umbilical cord.

Beef calves are sold. They may be an orphan, twin or split from it's mother. If it is split from it's mother, it is because the cow and calf will bring more money separated.

The beef sell for more than a dairy calf. The dairys don't keep the bull calves because they aren't worth much and usually it isn't worth their time or effort to raise them. They are in the milk business, not beef.

A beef steer will just about always bring more money than a dairy steer when you go to sell them. YMMV

Good luck.

 

[Lucky_P]

I've raised hundreds of dairy calves - steers and heifers - from babies, and maybe a dozen or more beef calves. Handled 'em all the same way. The beef calves NEVER perform. They always turn out to be a sorry little crappy looking thing. After my experience, I would never intentionally go out of my way to purchase a beef calf to raise on a bottle; Holsteins work ever so much better.
That said, I did have a knotty little roan BeefmasterXSHXHereford heifer that had stalled out at about 250 lbs that topped the local sale one time(back in the late '80s)...somebody really got screwed on that purchase.

 

[backhoeboogie]

I buy beef splits from the sale barn and graft them onto a nurse cow or two. The prices you pay are going to be dependant on who is bidding. It seems when everyone is looking for babies, the ring man will do a lot of splitting. When not many folks are bidding, they split less pairs. The secret here is to get in early on the splits just in case you are one of the few looking. It is also going to depend on the size of the sale barn.

I have always had good luck with beef splits. They grow out very well for me.

Where I have a problem is when I have a nurse cow about to calve. I will go and buy the splits in anticipation and the darn cow can go on for a week longer than I anticipated. So I am bottle feeding in the mean time. If the calf is a week to 10 days old, they can be wild and stubborn. I put them in a chute and force feed them the first run. I am usually good after that.

The only time I buy dairy calves is when I buy heifers to groom as replacement nurse cows. I never buy bull dairy calves, but that is just me personally as it relates to my methods of using a nurse cow. Beef steers fetch a whole lot more nickels than dairy steers when I am ready to turn these back to the sale. They do cost more initially but the return is far better.

 

[spinandslide]

I agree with chippie.

around here, you can buy, as has been stated, baby beef calves at the sale..orphan, twins or splits.

I bought a split off of a friend, who bought it at the sale to graft onto a cow he had...cow was wild as anything and wouldnt take the calf, he got fed up with bottle feeding it and I bought it from him. it wasnt to bad. she is now expecting her first calf..and even though she almost died as a youngster, she has turned into a very large, mature, good looking animal.

thing that annoys me..is you hear of a local guy who has an orphan that doesnt want to graft or bottlefeed it. you offer to buy it, at a fair price..then they back out or try to get you to pay top of the line prices for the little moneypit..had this happened to me. guy moaned and groaned about having to feed an orphan or having to haul it to the sale and potentially take a loss..I told him Id buy it from him for $150.."average" for our salebarn. Then he backtracks and starts saying he's seen the baby beefs go as high as $300..told him good luck and to take it to the sale. I wont shell out that kinda money for a baby beef calf...IMO, the risk is to high of them getting ill to spend that kind of money on them.

Guy ended up only getting a $150 or $175 bid at the salebarn too..idgit..

 

[novaman]

Around here you won't touch a beef calf for less than $250 if it is a good healthy calf. Now I realize they sell better down the road too but you are taking a big loss if you lose one.

 

[backhoeboogie]

thing that annoys me..is you hear of a local guy who has an orphan that doesnt want to graft or bottlefeed it. you offer to buy it, at a fair price..then they back out or try to get you to pay top of the line prices for the little moneypit..had this happened to me. guy moaned and groaned about having to feed an orphan or having to haul it to the sale and potentially take a loss..I told him Id buy it from him for $150.."average" for our salebarn. Then he backtracks and starts saying he's seen the baby beefs go as high as $300..told him good luck and to take it to the sale. ..

Yes. But that can be a double edged sword for him too. It seems to me the solo babies bring less nickels than those that are split. I don't know if it is because you are looking at the heritage there when they are split or if it is because bidders figure something is wrong or the calf hasn't been fed for a few days etc.

Two of my nurse cows are difficult to graft to. I have a crate for them. I put them in the crate and let the calves nurse. Once they have nursed for a few days, they have the cows scent and everything is okay. Got another one I can milk out a bit and sponge milk onto the graft calves. That's all it takes. I have had some that would let anything nurse and that can be a problem too when you want to turn them out to pasture with the rest of the herd. For this reason, I actually like the "difficult" ones better since they will only let the grafts nurse and I can turn them to pasture with no problems.

I try to hold my cost to $150 a calf. I have gone over that because I did not want to milk out the nurse cow. There are times when everyone there is looking for babies. The ring man will split a lot more cows when that happens and the prices are up there. You just never know until you are there.

 

[spinandslide]

Agree with you BHB..just kinda annoyed me he moaned and groaned about the "effort" it would take with an orphan..he didnt have time, didnt want to deal with it. I offer him $150 for the calf..and you can see his eyeballs light up with little dollar signs. I may look like some sop of a bleeding heart woman, but I can assure you, I am not......

I dont know how my friend was trying to graft my calf onto his cow..he just said she was a knucklehead..after a week, he shipped her and called me to come and get the calf..as I already had dibbs on it if it didnt graft. he got back what he paid for her, plus abit extra to offset the milk replacer he had to feed her for a day or two til I could get out there.

 

[TexasBred]

Around here you won't touch a beef calf for less than $250 if it is a good healthy calf. Now I realize they sell better down the road too but you are taking a big loss if you lose one.

About all pairs i see aer split in the ring. Seems you have calf buyers and packer buyers but not a lot of folks wanting to buy a pair and take it home. More money for the seller too. The cow will bring $700 or better and the calf close to $2.00 a pound if it sold by the pound. Holstein bull calves at the same sale sell at $10-15 bucks and do real good on a good milk replacer and good starter feed. You're starting off way ahead. Just don't expect the holstein to bring as much as quickly.