day old calf

caroline00 · #1 05/23/06, 06:11 PM

how much milk does a day old calf drink in each feeding...in quarts or gallons, please? Thank you!

JR05 · #2 05/23/06, 06:46 PM

Do you know how much the calf weight? According to "The Family Cow" book if it weights 70-90 lbs give it 8 lb.s ( almost a gallon) per day divided into 2 feedings. Over 90lbs and you give 9lbs of milk (little over gallon). Has this calf had the collostrum from mom? If not better get some fast, there is a powdered kind sold at feed stores but the real thing is best if you can get it. Personally I divide the feedings by 3 the first week or 2 as this is better on the baby's tummy. At about 2-3 weeks introduce calf feed or starter this will give it the vitamins and minerals it needs to grow properly. Hope this helps. By the way, are you going to use replacer or whole milk. Whole milk even store bought is better, less chance of scours. Good luck, maybe someone can give more help then I have I have goats so I use goats milk on my calves and don't have scour problems.

jr05

caroline00 · #3 05/23/06, 06:48 PM

it nursed off of mom for 2 feedings and they sent a gallon of moms milk home with us...

thanks... it drank a quart so I will try again in a few hours to get it to drink the other quart...

JeffNY · #4 05/23/06, 07:52 PM

Here is what you do, books are good, but they are going as a basic guideline. Don't over feed a day old calf. Start off with a bottle up to 100lbs, and a half bottle up to 70lbs. Then after a day or so, go from a half bottle to a bottle, and stick with the bottle, but add a half bottle mid-day. After a week+ that 100lb calf at birth, should be getting 3qt's 3x day for a good month. The smaller calf, 3 full bottles, 3x a day. After a month, go to a gallon a day for the big calf, and 3qt 3x day for the smaller. Eventually the bigger calf gets some grain, while the smaller calf will catch up. This is what we are doing, and they are doing excellent. The bull calf that is 1 month old on this past sunday is getting a gallon each feeding now. The heifer calf is getting 2qt 3x day. The other two heifers are getting 3qt's, one is getting 2qt at noon, but the red holstein is getting 3qt 3x day. As I said, do not overfeed, also after a week, stick a bucket in with the calf with water in it, it does help.

Jeff

caroline00 · #5 05/23/06, 08:31 PM

ok, now you are getting confusing...
our bottle is a half gallon bottle... are all calf bottles half gallons? I thought that our friends looked more like a quart...

JeffNY · #6 05/23/06, 09:01 PM

You can get 3 quart bottles. We use 1 bottle then a half bottle to make up 3 quarts. So it will take 2 bottles. To feed a gallon, simply feed two full bottles. A normal bottle is 2 quarts, more or less a half gallon bottle. Sorry for the confusion.

Jeff

dosthouhavemilk · #7 05/24/06, 07:10 PM

What breed is the calf?
That will help a lot with this question.

caroline00 · #8 05/24/06, 07:26 PM

Brown Swiss

he is still a bit of a slow feeder... and doesnt take a half gallon at a time... he does get up and down and look around etc.. he does not look sickly... I think we are just at the teaching him to drink from a bottle... I am basically doing it like I do my goats but with a bit more muscle...

how do you figure out what a calf weighs without having a livestock scale?

thanks

dosthouhavemilk · #9 05/24/06, 07:35 PM

Hmmm...my experience is with Jerseys and Jersey/Norwegian Red crosses.
All are fed the same though. One full bottle of liquids, twice daily. Three full bottles of colostrum in the first day and a half. Then down to 4 pounds (a pint's a pound the world round), the rest warm water for a couple of days. Then usually down to 3 pounds for a couple of days. Smaller calves go down to 2 1/2 pounds and the rest water. But mostly, our calves are bigger and they stay at 3 pounds of milk with the rest water. Switched to a bucket at a week of age. However much milk they were getting plus water to equal 6 pounds liquids.
Works well for us. Usually raw whole Jersey milk from their dam or else replacer.

Surely someone ehre has a weight tape. If you can tape him the same way you would a goat and list his girth in inches someone ought to be able to give you the weight. Or else pick him up and step on a scale.

JeffNY · #10 05/24/06, 08:27 PM

We have been feeding 2 Jersey bull calves, 6 quarts a day. That equates to, 1 bottle 3x a day. One morning, One mid-day, One evening. They do not have the runs, they are growing nicely, and are very healthy.

Swiss being similar in body size to holsteins, should get similar amounts. As long as he is getting milk into his system, he should be fine. He will gain. Swiss calves are known to be this way, slow. They also seem to be a breed that is on their own wave length. They do what they want, when they want, and as calves, they survive well on bottles. Some people have had problems with swiss, the people who have had them for a while found when they bucket feed swiss calves, young ones. They have lost them, but when they bottle fed the calves, they survived.

Jeff

caroline00 · #11 05/24/06, 09:51 PM

Thanks! he didnt take much this evening at all... he seems healthy... at 530 pm, he was a day and a half old... I am still feeding him colostrom from his mother but he did nurse twice before coming to us... he has about 3 pints of colostrum left... he is not scouring... he is as active an any other baby animal...does not seem like a colostrum deprived baby (I know goats, not calves) he was also elastrated yesterday....

so we'll see how he does tomorrow...if I get the urge, I might go out later tonight...

dosthouhavemilk · #12 05/25/06, 12:34 AM

On some farms they tube a calf a good gallon of colostrum and then don't bother to feed the calf for a day. The calf lays there and just digests what it has been given.
He's gonna spend quite a bit of time resting, just a kid will. Not much to do but digest and adjust to this new world.

It's fine and dany to feed as much milk as a calf will take if you can afford to. We ship milk and after the colostrum runs out...it comes out of the pay check. They calves thrive on their calf starter and many a judge comments on a little bit of over conditioning on our four month old heifer calves.
They certainly aren't hurt from our regiment.
Kinda like when they tell us to pull the grain from our 15 month and older heifers cause they are a bit overweight. All they get is pasture/hay, minerals and water.

Just keep a close eye on him as you would a kid. Since you've got that experience you are set. Sounds like he got a great start as well.

caroline00 · #13 05/25/06, 01:27 PM

that must have been what happened...
I fed this morning... and my daughter fed a bit later... he drank.... a pint....

WE went into town and while we were there bought a tubed calf bottle... came home and my daughter fed again...from his regular bottle... he drank a half gallon.... so now I can go get my $13 back from the tubed bottle... I'll wait a couple of days though... she says he is still hungry but I dont want to overfeed him after not having much the last 24 hours...

so his mothers milk is now gone... we have raw cows milk and raw goats milk.. this farmer says that for some reason, the calves do better on the goats milk... so I guess that is what we will try now...