betweenthelines
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Isn't 4 litres in one whack too much for a newborn calf?
Thought my white cow radar went off[emoji106]
NoIsn't 4 litres in one whack too much for a newborn calf?
Depends on the size of the calf
Well yes 4 litres for a 20 kg might be a bit muchDepends on the size of the calf
100% agree with you, bigger speedy feeder here at 4 litres, but v occasionally tubing is a necessity with a calf that will not suck, but I dont like doing it and fortunately only have to do one or two a year, the calf lady has the patience to get them sucking and thats why I leave her to it.we only ever bag if we can't get them to drink on a speedyfeeder.
tubing is cruel
We will let them take as much as they can blues will take upto 6 litres on a first feed but usually 4 or 5 and generally they wont take alot more for 24 hrsIsn't 4 litres in one whack too much for a newborn calf?
100% agree with you, bigger speedy feeder here at 4 litres, but v occasionally tubing is a necessity with a calf that will not suck, but I dont like doing it and fortunately only have to do one or two a year, the calf lady has the patience to get them sucking and thats why I leave her to it.
Tubing is the very very last resort.
Some interesting work done re tubing over here and pretty much confirms my suspicions.
As bad as the Bobbie industry is it hive vet great insights into what is happening on farm with real world tubing
Long story short. 90% your doing damage to the calf throat.
Then where is the milk ending up when a calf sucks(abomasum) where does the tube put it... rumen. The boobie calves that have been tubes are found with large amount of congealed milk sitting in their rumens.
2 litres sucks would be as good as 4 tubed.
I'm not anti tubing as it has saved the lives of plenty calves but as a standard practice we can do better.
And you need to train the calf the feed the next day anyway.
Just for reference my other half does all the calves here. Not uncommon to have 30+fresh calves dropped off per day at peak. It's perfectly doable to bottle feed everything
Same, we r very cruel people, just wait we will get the animal cruelty police on usTube everything here for first 2 feeds then on the bucket with teat. Must use the tube 1000+ times a year. Never drowned a calf yet. If they start making a noise they are almost certainly full so stop. Also if they are running round the pen and you can hardly catch them they are full. You just have to be sensible.
When I came back from uni we had 130 cows, we now have 230 that's with selling on average 15 heifers a year, I have only ever tubed a calve and first 2 feeds are tubed, surely if I was doing such a bad job by tubing the poor wee calves I would still be at 130 cow numbers and selling heifers would be out of the questionTubing is the very very last resort.
Some interesting work done re tubing over here and pretty much confirms my suspicions.
As bad as the Bobbie industry is it hive vet great insights into what is happening on farm with real world tubing
Long story short. 90% your doing damage to the calf throat.
Then where is the milk ending up when a calf sucks(abomasum) where does the tube put it... rumen. The boobie calves that have been tubes are found with large amount of congealed milk sitting in their rumens.
2 litres sucks would be as good as 4 tubed.
I'm not anti tubing as it has saved the lives of plenty calves but as a standard practice we can do better.
And you need to train the calf the feed the next day anyway.
Just for reference my other half does all the calves here. Not uncommon to have 30+fresh calves dropped off per day at peak. It's perfectly doable to bottle feed everything
You left uni 46 years ago?When I came back from uni we had 130 cows, we now have 230 that's with selling on average 15 heifers a year, I have only ever tubed a calve and first 2 feeds are tubed, surely if I was doing such a bad job by tubing the poor wee calves I would still be at 130 cow numbers and selling heifers would be out of the question
When I came back from uni we had 130 cows, we now have 230 that's with selling on average 15 heifers a year, I have only ever tubed a calve and first 2 feeds are tubed, surely if I was doing such a bad job by tubing the poor wee calves I would still be at 130 cow numbers and selling heifers would be out of the question