who buys jersey sale heifers

[ugabulldog]

My wife wants a calf for a pet but only one who's life we will be saving. My question is, if we buy a jersey heifer from a dairy farm, would this calf probably be bought at a sale for slaughter?

Follow-up question: I know baby goats won't take a bottle after about a week on mom's milk, is this true for calves also?

[lasergrl]

Jersey heifers are very valuable and you very rarely find them at auction or for sale from the farm. they arent cheap. Slaughter- never unless its a sterile freemartin.
You can buy bull calves all day long very cheap and sometimes get them free. They will be slaughtered 25% of the time. the other 75% of the time they die within the first week. Jerseys bottle calves can be real fragile. When I first started raising them they were dying on me left and right but I'll tell you now after getting the hang of it I have lost 1 calf out of the last 12 and it had pneumonia real bad and a hernia on top of it. I have 7 calves out back right now. Chances are HUGE that if you have never done it before and you buy one that isnt well started youll end up burying the calf. Check out the sticky on raising a bottle calf.
Find a dairy, and ask them if you can buy a 2-3 week old that is already transitioned to milk replacer and you will have a much better time of it.
calves are hard wired to suck and they dont usually mind the bottle once you put it in their mouth and they know its milk. I had a little trouble with a 4 week old longhorn once but she was WILD! So wild she would run up to me and drink the bottl eand run away like i was a cougar as soon as it was empty!

[Judith]

Not quite sure what you are asking but here is my interpretation.

Any Jersey heifer you purchase from local auction will most likely be a cull. Dairies do not typically sell heifers through auction unless they are free-martins.

You can purchase jersey heifers through dairy auctions but they would be in the 1000.00 range and would not be "rescues" as such.

that said on rare occasion you just might find a jem at auction. Not likely but it could happen.

Is that what you are asking?

Regarding milk, calves from dairy farms are not usually allowed to suckle from their mothers at all. They are pulled immediately and put on a bottle. I work on a 250 cow dairy so i am only giving you answers from my personal experience. Now if you want a bull calf you can get really really good ones a dime a dozen at auction. The last bulls we took in did not even cover the commision fee of 10.00......

[myersfarm]

I buy jersey heifers at a sale barn all the time...last year I raised close to 25 jersey heifers this year I have 11 the most I will give for a new born jersey heifer is $200 I have sold bunches and usally get $2.00 a pound a 400 pounder brings $800 to $850.. but i never sell at a young age untll they get to 400 pounds.........Like lasergirl said if you are new to bottle claves you will need a lot of luck to raise a jersey.. and unless it is a freemartin you will not be saving its life as a baby you might just make its life longer as a milk cows died young average is 4 to 5 years then they go to slaughter



just got in another 22 dairy heifers thats 43 on milk and 22 weaned total of 65 this year


tjm

[topside1]

Your question can be answered this way. The farm calf if sent to auction would possiblily be a freemartin, if it was a freemartin then it is bought for slaughter or pet
($20). If the same calf comes to auction intact, it will then generally sell for $200 and up. This calf can become a family milk cow or pet....Just depends on what you feel like spending. At the auction I attend, freemartins make up 1% of all heifers sold. If you really looking at getting a heifer well now is the time. Prices are at the lowest I've ever seen...Topside
P.S. review the stickys at the top of the cattle forum page, bottle calf thread...

[farmerjon]

I know in my area you will never see heifers for sale, You can stop at any farm around here and get a bull calf, I tried to raise two this past spring, bad idea. One died two days and one died a week latter, The big thing with Jerseys is not to over feed them and get as much jump start in them as you can without over feeding them. And the moment they act sick its probally too late. I wanted to raise them as oxen, this spring Im going to look for some shorthorns.

[JKB07]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....

sorry I had to laugh.

Justin

[Jay]

I'm trying to figure out what is so funny?

[topside1]

Me too....I think I know,,,,but how about coming clean....P.s. are you still in school?

[ugabulldog]

Thanks to all that replied w/ help. We have decided to get a bull calf from a dairy tomorrow, $20. It will be about 3 days old, had colostrum from mom and they will start on bottle. Also, they will band balls for us (steer) and we will disbud in a couple of weeks. I am excited and nervous at the same time as this will be our first cow. We have a month and a half old nubian nanny we have been bottle feeding since new years and it will enjoy the company. I grew up on a farm and love animals, especially cows, more so than horses. Anyway, we plan on getting one more goat and maybe a LGD. Just a small 3 acre hobby farm. Sorry to ramble, thanks again for help and i'm sure I'll have more questions later.

[topside1]

Ask questions, show off with photos and welcome to the forum...Topside

[Charleen]

Glad you made a decision and I hope the animals do well for you. Nothing cuter than a nubian baby with floppy ears.

Here in Western NY, the market for light weight bull calves – those 70 pounds and lighter – has been very poor for quite a while now. The demand for these types of calves has recently worsened, and we have experienced situations at some of our markets where there have been no bids for these animals. In this situation, it leaves the calf consignor with no income from the calf and the liability for trucking expenses. If there is a market for these calves on a given day, they are only bringing about $.10/lb which often does not cover the expenses associated with marketing the animal. The market for bull calves that weigh 85 pounds and up remains relatively strong.

What we hear from the people who slaughter calves is that the market is saturated with veal, and their economics of slaughtering light weight calves is also poor. It is anticipated that the market conditions will not change in the near future.

Many diaries in the area are now eliminating the bulls at birth.

[JKB07]

I was not laughing at anyone... just thought it was funny..

John, I am still in school. If i was still in Alabama... I would be heading ur way on Tuesday for the sale...

Justin

[bigmudder77]

i get all my bulls from a local farmer i usually get them for free cause they have messed up legs (ill get a pic of the one i just got a week ago) but if you ever had a calf like this there alot of work and need to be alone till they can walk right other wise they get beat up by the other ones

but a free calf is good the legs usually get stright after a month average is what mine were doing

if its a jersey make sure your fence is good cause if its not he will be out for some reason all the jerseys i had always walk alone the fence when i let them out to see if there is any weak spots and they are a big pain always in the way when trying to drive a round bale in there every time i open a gate up he hears it and comes running to see what im doing he is funny but at the same time a big pain cause i do every thing by my self so i gotta get out of the truck open the gate drive through get out and close it before he gets to it

and getting them to drink out of the bucket is fun work lol they are stupid (or at least all the ones i have ever had) my brown swiss learned how to drink out of the bucket when he was 3 days old

post pics up here so we can see him