Foster Nannys and Bumb Calves

[MTplainsman]

In a previous goat post of mine, I had recieved input on a topic that really sparked my interest. I am now concidering run a milk goat or two, to foster my bum calves. I know I can't actually pair up the goat and calf, but I can milk the goats and bottle feed the calves. I guess I need to know any and every idea on this subject both good and bad. I really think I could make a good profit from the bums without the killer prices of milk replacer, and at the same time justify my having goats! Oh ya, and one of the perks would be stealing some of that fine fresh mil for myself. Let the advice roll... Thank you all.

[Eunice]

I usually dry my goat up for the winter and kid them out in the spring, but last winter I had a yearling that was not cycling. Rather than dry her, not pregnant, I put a calf directly on her. Four months later, I weaned a beautiful calf and got $300 for him. I also raise calves on goat milk from the bottle.

[MTplainsman]

You stuck a calf directly on her and she recieved no bag damage? I was wondering if that could be done. Now thad cut out a lot of "middle" work if you paired up instead of bottle fed. Thanks for info!

[Eunice]

I am now hand milking the doe that raised the calf last winter. She has beautiful udder - was grand champion senior doe in the open and youth shows at the Utah Dairy Goat Show in July. The calf was big enough to pick her up off the ground when I weaned him (3/4 Holstein X 1/4 Swiss). He was a very ignorant 10 day old calf when I first brought him home. I got him for half price because he would NOT suck on a rubber nipple at the dairy. He sure was happy with "his" goat mommy at my farm.

[YodelDogs]

Please forgive my ignorance but what is a "bumb calf"?

[MayLOC]

We use our goats for personal milk and for raising any bottle calves we end up with on the ranch each year. It works great for us. I would however NOT suggest putting calves directly on a goat. Calves get rough and I have seen many damaged udders on nurse cows from calves. You may get away with doing it one season, but the damage will happen and it could ruin your milk goat.

[MayLOC]

Originally Posted by YodelDogs

Please forgive my ignorance but what is a "bumb calf"?

no ignorance...I think the term is really bum lamb...never heard "bumb calf" before myself. We actually call them dogey calves...just means bottle calf...orphan calf...whatever you want to call them

[nehimama]

Or. . . you could feed a few feeder pigs with the extra goats' milk. I did so this past spring/summer, and have beautiful pork in my freezer now, and so do my friends! I was thinking bottle calf next go-round, though.

NeHi

[YodelDogs]

Thanks MayLOC. That makes sense.

[topside1]

I still want to know what a Bumb Calf means to you folks in Montana? Now back to the subject. I know of one farmer who lets the calves suck directly from his dairy goats. He has an elaborate set up using a shoot runway, small head catch, and very high ramped milk stand. He's making a living raising calves in high volume, so hand milking is simply out of the question. The head catch uniquely prevents the calves from butting and severely damaging the goat’s udder. A growing calf can easily destroy a goats udder, plus have the strength to raise and toss a goat from a commonly built milk stand....not a good idea......I can milk a goat out in under six minutes, cleaning the bottles and feeding the calves takes longer then the milking....

[MTplainsman]

LOL! sorry guys, I don't know what got into me when I added the B after bum everytime...I think I need a vacation! I corrected it. Thanks for bringing it to attention. Joel

[Starsmom]

I still want to know what a Bumb Calf means to you folks in Montana?

Bum calf (orphan calf) is not used as much as bum lamb, but it means a calf that has lost its mother or been rejected and has to be raised by humans.

[TerriA]

This is a timely thread for me. I was going to ask how many goats would it take to raise a couple of bucket calves...

We have 6 saanen goats right now. One will freshen for the 4th time (at one time she was giving a gallon a day but we didn't need that much so we cut it back to once a day milking), one the second time, one the first time (we held her back since she was a bit underweight last year-unrelated to the others and bought to be bottle fed) and then 3 doelings born last May who have been dam raised and are of good weight. All are healthy. We are getting a saanen buck in a week or so to keep here for a month and I am thinking we can breed all six if we want-otherwise we may sell the 4 and keep the oldest and the one we bottle raised.

The oldest one is still giving us a quart a day of milk (due to raising her doeling, we stopped milking her for a while and have recently started again in the mornings only and plan on milking her for a couple more months to let her dry off before kidding). She has a nice set of teats that are great to hand milk with. We tried to milk out the one that had the twins (her first time kidding) but she was an ornery little cuss and we ended up letting her raise her doelings.

This next spring we are planning on letting each of the does get fed their grain the last 6 wks on the milk stand, letting them get used to us messing with them, brushing them, etc. And then pulling all the kids at birth. We plan on keeping only 2-3 of the new kids and getting rid of the rest so we can get plenty of milk... we will keep one buckling and possibly a wether and then any doeling out of the older first freshner since she is registered and the friendliest of them anyway. So we think we will be bottle feeding up to three kids and hopefully two bucket calves... possibly keeping up to a gallon of milk a week for our personal use (just the two of us here) until the calves are weaned. The kids will be housed in a separate barn and small pasture so they should be fairly "tame" (and yes... we know not to make a pet out of a buck since we realize they get "too friendly" and can possibly be dangerous then).

Any thoughts? If we milk 2x a day will we have enough milk to make it a worthwhile venture? I should mention we are considering getting a milking machine for the 5 goats that have tiny teats so it would be easier to milk them... we got spoiled on Ellie's teats! LOL!! I want to be able to show my dh that the investment in a milk machine would pay for itself within a year or two at the most... and as the original poster said, milk replacer is so expensive!

Thank you!
Terri

[MayLOC]

Originally Posted by TerriA

This is a timely thread for me. I was going to ask how many goats would it take to raise a couple of bucket calves...

Terri

I would say the answer is very dependent on a lot of things, like goat breed, genetic potential, management practices, ect...

If you know what your goats can/will give, then you can figure out what you can feed the milk.

I can say that we figure a gal. of milk/ day /calf as the bare minimum. This is our minimum and we like to feed them more than that ourselves.