New Milking Machine~ pics

[Cheryl aka JM]

MUCH easier~ almost operates itself! LOL!


I FINALLY found a couple bottle bulls last night. Carol and I had to drive 5 hours to get them ( 2 1/2 hours each way) and they cost me $100 each but they are vigorous and playful! Bessie is not sure what a good idea it is to be a nurse cow~ but the boys are VERY SURE its a good idea and they are talking her into it enough that I'm a little worried about them overeating! Bessie is SUCH a good girl!


But Bessie's daughter sure looked betrayed when she saw them nursing off her momma! LOL! "Step brothers? Really? WHO thought this was a good idea?"

[allenslabs]

Oh so cute!! Yep....she looks a little concerned about the new bros. LOL! What a good cow you have. My girl STILL won't let this one nurse without being in her certain "spot" that she will allow it. Any other area and she will whoop him for sure. LOL!

[brentcu]

Very handsome calves. And that banded heifer is pretty. You folk put in an impressive effort with your bottle calves.

I do wonder why people don't get beef calves. Milk calves look very weedy to me. Are beef calves so much more expensive? When you factor in five hours driving, petrol and wear and tear on your vehicle there's plenty of cost there. Perhaps you could have found a beef calf closer?

No criticism, I know the cost of these guys is amazingly cheap. I'm just curious of the economics/effort of running milk calves versus beef calves. I don't know the calf market in the US at all. Cheers, Brent.

[Cheryl aka JM]

I'm still learning as well Brent so I"m not the best to answer for you. I can tell you why I finally chose to do it. I had bought the cow in that picture two years ago as a bottle calf~ I paid $300 for her and my idea was to bring her up and use her as a milk cow. Meanwhile over the last two years I also got some milk goats. Well...have you ever tasted fresh goat milk? I never had before~ but I have discovered I like it MUCH better than cow milk. Much better. And when my heifer freshened I also discovered that it is MUCH easier to milk the goat than the cow. Well~ I still want to keep my cow~ and the other heifer I got at the same time. So I need a couple bottle calves to put on her to consume the extra milk and so I don't have to milk her. I looked and looked and could not find any for less than $150 within a 6 hour drive ONE WAY. So when I finally found these calves at $100 each 2 1/2 hours one way from me I did the math. It would take one full tank of gas to go get the two calves and come home. Thats a $70 tank of gas~ so each calf cost me $35 in gas and $100 purchase. I don't have to do milk replacer as I have the milk cow and I'm already feeding her so additional costs there are a wash. There will be the cost of the additional hay and graze consumed as these bottle calves come up but again MOST of that is already sunk cost~ the graze will be here whether those calves eat it or not. So the calves really were relatively cheap when you look at it that way~ $135 each and some incidentals. Now~ when I butchered the steers I brought up at the same time I brought up those heifers I sold 3 halves (kept on half for my self) for $3 lb hanging wieght. Each came out just over 500lbs hanging weight~ mulitple of $3 I got $1500 for each calf. I had to pay approx $350 to have those calves butchered so that leaves $1150 of that in my pocket. Subtract the $135 purchase and account for some incidentals over the 2 years~ I'm still making about $900 a calf. So those two calves equal beef for me and money for me in two years.

that makes it a good deal to me

[brentcu]

Cheryl, thanks for the reply. That all makes sense and seems good business, but I still wonder what the numbers are for beef calves. Are they even available in your area?

You could buy a dairy breed calf or a beef breed calf. I see a lot of folk buying dairy breed calves and I wonder is it just the initial purchase price because I would guess the beef breeds are more efficient at converting feed to beef and put more beef on per animal lowering slaughtering fees per lb. I'm also guessing the purchase price takes all that into account and availability becomes the key problem. But that's just all abstract thinking, I don't know the market.

This is chevre country so there are plenty of goats around. And 6 hours gets me across the country. :-)

[gone-a-milkin]

brent,

It is a lot more difficult to find beef calves for sale. Usually, they are dam-raised and not sold until after they are weaned.

Occasionally you may find an orphaned calf for sale, but not commonly.

[Slev]

Cheryl,

I have done just about the same as you, as far as drinking the goat milk and I really can't say I like it any better than cow milk, no one in my family really wanted to drink it but me. But at the same time, we often go off for the weekends to do Living History with my sheep and dogs as a Historical Shepherd, so we are already traveling with the sheep. It's a whole lot easier to add a goat or two to the mix, than transport a cow along with the sheep. So, when my cow/cows, (a Dexter & a Jersey) turned breeding age, I sold them to my friend, (cheap enough that I get a calf back from each one of them) so that if I'm in a better place to raise them and let them freshen and milk them then I can. Otherwise, I think I may go through that process again, until I get to a point in my life that I can milk the cows. Or, heck, I may find it a whole lot easier just to keep milking goats...

[Cheryl aka JM]

Been keeping an eye on everyone and all seems ok so far. I wasn't planning to leave the calves with Bessie right off~ but she really didn't seem to mind them much so I went ahead and left them with her. Checked last night and again this morning. I don't see the calves getting much milk~ but her bag is slacked/mostly empty every time I look at her and I usually get 2 gallons off her every morning so the milk is going somewhere and the calves look bright eyed and are playing. Bessie was obviously confused this morning when I just gave her a bucket of grain rather than pulling her up to the milk stanchion....but I saved a good hour and a half off morning chores today by just giving her a bit of supplemental grain.

Woo Hoo I think she's a fine nurse cow in the making!
Next Bossie....who got that name because she is SO BOSSY~ hopefully the practice with Bessie will make it easier when Bossie freshens.

[Callieslamb]

Originally Posted by brentcu

.................... I do wonder why people don't get beef calves. Milk calves look very weedy to me. Are beef calves so much more expensive?

You can rarely find beef bottle calves. Their mommas raise them so they are rarely for sale until they are weaned. Which is kind of the idea in raising beef cattle.

[brentcu]

Callieslamb, I was curious as to the economics of running a beef calf (not a bottle calf) vs a dairy bottle calf. The efficiency of growth of the beef calf over its life will give you a lot of gains.

I hadn't thought of it until your post but you do find bottle beef calves. If the OP has a couple of cow-calf farmer friends maybe they'd sell the calves where the mother cow is having problems rather than bottle feed them themselves.

I see bottle raised beef calves all the time, but I don't live near you and most beef farms around me here carry Blondes d'Aquitaine which do get into problems more than the average. [We have Salers which have way fewer problems.]

[CarolT]

brentcu, I live near Cheryl, helped her go pick these babies up. She searched high and low for beef or even dairy calves closer but you're just not going to get so lucky Most times, if there's a problem, the calf is dead before the farmer knows anything is amiss...

[Callieslamb]

I've never seen a beef bottle calf advertised here. Perhaps if you have a friend in the beef business? Yes, beef calves would grow faster- that's what they do. But if you can't find them you go to the thing you can do. Personally, I like jersey.