For those of you that do decent #'s of bottle calves.......

[sassafras manor]

I know there are several members that run fairly good sized numbers of bottle calves. Do you raise them as repalcement heifers or as feeder calves? For those that raise them as feeders, how many do you run at one time in the various stages of growth, where do you purchase them from, at what size do you try to sell them at and thru private sales or sale barns? The last 2 years we have gradually raised more every few months, but I am thinking of taking it to the next level and raising decent numbers. There are a fair amount of dairies close by that i buy calves from occasionally but could easily buy more from them if I go forward with this. We have the space and facilties so that would not be an issue and time is available as well. For those of you that raise them up to 400-500 lbs. what you feel you put in your pocket per calf after expenses and how long does it take you to reach that point from a week old calf?
Thanks - Matt

[Valmai]

Being on the other side of the world my costs and profit margins would be of no use to you (I can tell you if you are curious). I sell my calves at 3months 100kg. Would you make better money selling them as weaned to finishers? I believe that over there dairy farms calve all year round so you could have weaned calves to sell all year so have regular income rather than waiting 1 or 2 years for them to be slaughter weight.

[Allen W]

Holsteins will bring about 75% or less of what a beef calf will here as a stocker or feeder calf.

[mozarkian]

Not sure how many you are looking to sell each year--we do avg of 25 -40 calves each year. Calf prices were up this year, so returns are better than usual. We do mostly dairy stock, each calf this year cost $50 initially and we sold some at 2 weeks (started calves) for $150, some at 8-12 weeks (weaners) at $250-300, some older calves in the $450-600 range, depending on age, size and what they were. We have kept a few of the really well built, pretty boys as bulls and have found a market for them as yearling bulls at around $700 each.

We only buy bulls, would love to raise replacement heifers and there is money in that, I believe, but we do not have enough pasture to hold heifers to breeding size.

We ONLY sell private sale, our buyers come from word of mouth, a sign up by the road and web classified sites. Sale barns are bad ju-ju for jersey calves-- around here good looking dairy stock gets sold at bargain rates. Check your local market reports to get an idea of what sale barns are getting for the size / breed of calves you plan to sell.

I expect we mostly double our money, after expenses (we have been very lucky and had no major vet costs this year--we do most routine stuff ourselves), but I am counting my labor as free and you may not want to do that. We could see more profit if we quit feeding grain and just pastured probably. Grain prices are terrible here, but a necessary evil. And we do not feed any milk replacer, we have 3 good producing cows that we hand milk. We choose to bottle feed to manage the milk, this allows us to feed the maximum amount of calves at a time.

Although beef cattle re-sell much higher than dairy, they also cost a lot more initially and we feel that the initial cost of the calf has to be a concern for us-- besides, I am a sucker for dairy cattle.