New to cows/raising beef calves

Congradulationd on your Jersey's.
Im guessing booth of your calves you have know are little bulls. If so you do want to band them. If not maybe you should consider keeping them and breed them later. As far as breeding the Jersey any of the good beef breeds would work. I perfer Black Angus since they bring more at auction time, If you are going to buy calves to bottrle feed, Then I recommened you find a dairy with Holestine or Ayrshire and buy week old bulls. They should run around $50 a peice according to where your at in the country. If possible buy directly from the dairyman and make sure they are at least a week old and had a chance to drink from Moma (Colosturam from the cow) . Hope this helps Arnold

 

I'm not all that experienced, but we are raising our first calf ourselves. This is my 2 cents: Band them early - the earlier the better as far as handling them. We waited until he was 3 months, would have been better to do when he was 3 days! Yes, you can do it yourself, but finding "both" obstacles was a challenge for us. We thought we had it under control, but after 3-4 weeks nothing was 'falling off', so we ended up having the vet make a house call. And to our surprise we had 'missed one'

Consider dehorning - we did it because my young children are around him all the time and he loves to head-butt you with affection (even at 300+ lbs!) If you choose to dehorn (we had the vet make another house call), do it early. Again handling was the issue. I understand this can be done yourself too, but we didn't have the materials (I didn't want to use the paste), or know-how and our vet in extremely accomodating and affordable. Maybe next time.

Our "Norman" was a gift, so he is not the best choice for beef - he's a Holstein - but the learning experience has been great fun. Eventhough he is freezer bound, he is pampered much like a pet. Next spring we hope to get another calf, probably a breed more 'beefy'.

Good Luck!

 

You probably want to put a stop to that head-butting now. When he weighs 1000 pounds and sends you flying about 20 feet, it isn't cute anymore.

When he butts, smack him one on the shoulder and yell at him. If that doesn't work, give him a boot in the nose. Avoid petting his head, pet his shoulders instead.

Just my thoughts

Jena---who has been sent flying by a 1000 pound steer and it wasn't fun.

 

Thanks Jena, I have been trying to discourage him, he thinks he's a puppy and it's just not "safe" any more It was cute when he was little, he doesn't realize that he's a bovine, he's never been with his own kind. But, your right, it's a dangerous behavior now. Thanks for the reminder.

 

In my area, it is VERY VERY rare to find a bottle beef calf for sale. Near impossible. Some of the dairies do use Angus bulls on their Jersey heifers, and that has been about as close as we can get.

We've done pretty well raising holstein bottle babies (steers) and selling them at about 350 lbs.

Tracy

 

I wouldn't get rid of the jersey calves, a jersey can easily raise 2 calves, and jerseys raised on the cow do fairly well, at least for your own consumption (jerseys yellow fat tends to turn some people off). Beef calves are hard to find, so take what you can get, or get holstiens, they make good beef too.