DebF
Your right , dont !!
, much better off if you can find off the farm bottle bulls
all teh calves in one pen are not nessarily from the same farm , different sale barns pen them differenttly , at our local barn , all teh beef type 3 day calves go in one or two pens depending on how many and are sold by the hundred weight , each ,through the sale, the dairy calves are seperated out according to breed and grouped together in small pens , and dont even go through the sale , but are sold "neath the stairs " in otherwords prenside as a pen of calves and mostly to as vealers , if you didnt know the ruitine you would not know when they sell .. so check in the office for time of sale of dairy calves
First , you dont know if the calves have recieved colostrum .. sometimes not
on teh bigger dairys around here if its sale day tehy load atruck with calves born in the last few days and off they go , sometimes the navels arent even dry yet ..so have some extra colostrum to feed them first off.
I dont rutinely vacinate , but I do anything that comes to the farm or leaves the farm , I like triangle 9 , it covers a whole spectrum of common calf diseases
but not everything .. be ready for scours from simple stress .. and have on what ever product you like to take care of that ... it can almost be a given that salebarn calves are going to scour sometime in teh first two weeks or so ..
just because of stress , if not you are lucky then ...
Yes you would need replacer unless you are milking goats or have a dairy cow .. i have raised bottle babies on all three types of milk .. when it comes to replacers , buy the best you can afford , the higher the fat content the better
I liek carnation , but there are several good ones out there , 2 x a day is fine to feed , directions should be on teh bag , other wise a bottle a feeding at first, but i would choose a nipple pail , or even train tehm over to a pail soon , for convience .. there is the idea that calves need to nurse though to help develop the ruman (hmm for got how to spell it .. sheesh )
I have weaned off calves from milk , as soon as 4 weeks .. but I like to keep them on for as long as possible .. and if you have a milk suppley all teh way to butchering can produce a good quality meat .. but thats only if you have free milk to do that ... actually once they are eating hay and supplemnt well you can wean them , I would wait awhile longer in the winter ,
as to times , well regularity is the best on feeding them , 12 hour shifts would be best , unless you want to feed them 3 x a day ... when you go against rutine you are setting yourself up for stress = scours , but its a judgement call for you
When you first bring them home , feed colostrum , then for a few days i like to feed a weak milk mix with elctrolytes added , there are many good ones on the market today , but 25 years ago , there wasnt to much choice , and i used to use gator aide
in a pinch , and if they scour take them off milk and feed electoytes and start over with teh weak milk going back to full strenth ..
all this goes for off the farm calves as well , the better thing is they havent been exposed to such a wide variety of salebarn bugs ...
This will tell you what the average price is in your area. Also pay close attention to what the high priced calves look like so you have some idea to go by. When youget milkreplacer make sure it is NOT soy based, this is one place you shouldn't scrimp on price!!!! When you are all set up and ready to get your calves remember to buy with your EYE'S&MIND NOT WITH YOUR HEART!! This will save you a lot of grief later.
