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| Hey guys I have some bottle calves that I am bottle feeding and my question is how is the best way to get them started on feed. I also wanted to know when is it time to get them of the bottle. The calves are spares incase I loose a calf during calving season. Thanks for all the help Nathan |
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Elkhorn river bottom eastern Nebraska | get yourself some calf crunch from hubbard, it has steam flaked corn and lots sticky stuff best calf starter around jmo....... |
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MN | We put out a plain pellet and they seem to pick up on eating without the molasses too. Just need to get it out as soon as possible - they start picking at it pretty early. |
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NW Iowa | An average on the milk replacer they say is one bag (50lbs) per calf. Mine were a little over two weeks old when I started giving them Sweet Flakes from Kent. Just a little in your hand at first, going to have to force it in their mouths at first. Once they get use to it get them to eat a little out of your hand and then drop it out from under them into a bucket. Out of my 20 bucket calves this year I only had problems with two of them eating creep and I blame that on them being sick. Now they can't wait for me to come back around and give it to them. I cut the milk by one forth when they eat 2 of the cups that come with the milk full of creep per feeding. Then cut to half, and work your way to just giving them warm water instead of milk. Do the warm water thing for a couple of feedings and them just give them creep and cold water and brome or hay if you want to. I forgot to say that when they start to get over a cup and a half per feeding, after they finish their milk come back around and give them cold water. This gets them use to drinking it and soon they will be waiting for that too. Hope all this helps. |
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shelby county ill | I usually sprinkle a little milk replacer on thier sweet-feed just enough for a smell really helps. |
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New Mexico | stick some of that in their mouth every time they finish a bottle ( help em chew it etc., ie keep it in their mouth etc ).
They get the idea pretty quick. Generally start that at 3 weeks and by week 4...well they know what it is then.
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| calves are funny solid feed starters. All the above info above great advice. Take a group of 50 calves on bottles and 5 to 10 of them will start early and eat like hogs. Middle third of group will pick at it at 2-3 weeks. You will have the last group only start when the milk is reduced. I used to half feed for several days to a week to kick those off before weaning off the milk gradually. Sweet feed works wonders.
Never used it but some feed company used to have a seperate bottle and nipple with a small pellet in it. You could give that after you take other milk bottle away, you know how they will suck on anything at that point. That feed wasnt too sweet or sticky so it flowed thru the nipple. If you had alot of calves would be a pain,,,for a few decent proposal.
I think large key to getting them to eat is getting them to drink warm water from a bucket after their bottle also. Those that hog down the water will also eat more and quicker. They dont drink frozen water nearly as quickly. d;~). |
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Help geting bottle calves to start on grain????
