Advice on raising replacement heifer with Mama

[cjb]

Any advice on raising Violet's calf with her? She has been nursing her since birth (10 weeks). I milk her udder out to be sure that her production stays up and have been lazy about separating them to get the milk. I just separated them for 12 hours and will be milking Mama out to actually get a decent supply of milk - yeah!

With my goats, I have separated Mom and babies for the night, milked in the morning and released them to be together. This calf is eating alot of grass, will eat grain if offered. How long do you need to have them separated before the calf loses interest in nursing? Can I continue to only separate at night? Will I adversely affect production if I'm only milking mornings and letting the calf have the rest?

If left to their own devices, how long would a calf naturally nurse?

Sorry for the newbie cow questions and thanks in advance.

Cliff

[francismilker]

In my experience with dairy cattle they don't do what the beefers sometimes do and self wein the calves. They'd let them suck until the good Lord comes back if the calf chooses to. As far as how long before the calf looses interest, I'd say NEVER! And that's just my experience. The only way I've successfully weined a dairy calf that had been allowed pasture time with mama was to keep them in total seclusion away from mama for weeks if not months. You can't even allow them to be in adjacent pastures because most dairy mamas will stand close to the fence and let baby nurse through the wire.

As far as the share milking regimin you're doing, that's what I do and it works great for me. When baby gets about six months old or when I'm ready to stop milking, I start the dry-off process or graft on an orphan and wein the calf.