Soon to be orphaned calf

[Colin]

Today one of my breeding cows has received a second IR. She has a 2.5 month old heifer calf which I've been informed I can keep. The calf is in excellent condition. I can run her with 6 other mums but I'm not confident she will be able to steal sufficient milk. At her age, should I try and bucket train her, feed her with calf nuts or just let her find her own way in the herd ?

Colin

[Rob R]

Probably easier to bottle feed her on a decent quality milk powder. Hard feed optional but shouldn't be necessary, providing there's good quality forage available.

[Saffy]

Sorry to hear that Colin, really bad luck!

I lost a cow once with magnesium deficiency, really nasty, her calf was 3 and a half months and I fed ad lib coarse calf ration and lots of grass. As you may guess - he did very well on it. He is now in Sire Services Devon and will be on AI soon, so he grew just fine and always looked very good on it but if she will bottle feed that would probably be easier as I had to put him on his own for his food several times a day at first and then twice a day for a couple of months but at 6 months he just had suckler nuts and grass like all the others.

Stephnaie

[sheila sykes]

I would get some calf powder bucket feed it and let it run with the other cows
and it might sneak some milk off them as well. as we had a orphan off someone else
last year and it shared at 2 cows all summer
Jennifer Sheila`s sister

[Broomcroft]

Hard luck Colin. We just had an orphan at a few weeks old. Got her penned up with a few other cows and calves. Man-handled her at first to get her to take a bottle (I used a lamb bottle) and when she got used to it (2-3 days?) she started to come to the gate for a bottle. Then she started pestering the other cows and eventually one took her on, together with her own calf as well. I stopped feeding her weeks ago and I just put them out in the field earlier today for the first time. Hope she's going to be OK because she's calling and I don't understand why as the cow that took her on is out there with her. I think I'll put a creep feeder out as well tomorrow just in case.

Good luck.

[Colin]

Thanks for all the advice. Cow went on Monday and I've managed to get the heifer calf to drink powdered milk from a bucket, athough she needs help. She didn't take to calf feed at all at first but has eaten a little today. I'm hoping in the next day or two she gets the hang of this herself.

Many thanks,

Colin

[Saffy]

Well done!

[Colin]

This calf will drink a holstein dry. Started off with 2 litres of milk twice a day, then increased to 3 now 4 and she's still looking for more. Still only eating a small amount of calf feed, so think I'll have to decrease the milk soon to get her to take more solids.

Regards,

Colin