Missouri | Did this quite a bit back in the day.
It will depend on the cow and how good/patient of a handler you are. We ran anywhere from 6-12 cows and they would all raise multiple rounds of 3 or 4 calves. Some cows washed out quickly, some died quickly, some needed 4 hungry 5 weights to change their tune, and some seemed to really enjoy keeping track of that many calves. If you can find a cow from a grazing system with some maternal traits left in the pedigree things will go smoother. The Jersey, Swiss, and Guernseys tended to work better for me over the Holsteins, even though some of them couldn't handle the fourth calf.
If you've never done it before, I'm not sure I would tackle a project like that on a year like this. Might be a good way to finish going insane. |