Jdunn55
Member
- Location
- Helston, cornwall
Looking to possibly get one under the grant scheme, any to avoid or are they all much the same? any that come with a weigh scale too - would be interesting data to see?
Automatic calf feeder
- Thread starter Jdunn55
- Start date
Would you buy one without the grant?
Martyn
Member
- Location
- South west
We have looked at the grant and handling facility, let's just say Iv pulled a whole load of old crash barriers out and started measuring! Looking close to £18-20k to have a race and weighing facilities, how does that ever stack up unless in daily/weekly use.
Jdunn55
Member
- Location
- Helston, cornwall
Yes, but I would buy second hand, I am busy enough in the spring, I can't afford a calf rearer plus labour is in short supply anyway, with the help of a machine it might mean the calves are fed better than they would if I'm messing around at 10 in the evening not being able to tell my arse from my elbow!
Plus I like the data information side of things they could provide
Fair enough.
I think your nuts.
@buffalo_soldier feeds calves while he milks. Perhaps he needs to offer you some time advice.
I've 40 calves left, they take sub 10 min a day. Not sure a feeder would ever feed them faster or cheaper.
pine_guy
Member
- Location
- North Cumbria
I’ll be sticking with my blue barrel, couple of peach teats and a few bits of pipe. Spend the cost of a calf feeder on powder
You attach the teats on the gate and feed adlib?
That’s not a picture for social media jeez
pine_guy
Member
- Location
- North Cumbria
No, teats on side off barrel and sit barrel next to gate. Roughly 100 litres of water and a bag of powder, whisk up. Usually 2 buckets from the parlour wash boiler (80-90deg) couple buckets of cold. Powder in, whisk up, top up with cold water.
Shunt round yard in the bucket of the small pivot.
More to life
Member
- Location
- Somerset
There a bit like milking robots everyone thinks it's going to save time. In truth they require quite a bit of management.
Why?That’s not a picture for social media jeez
Be quicker if you explain why it’s best practice
Clean, well looking calfs. Job done
Job done.
Holsteinfriesian90
Member
- Location
- Cornwall
The forster technik ones are the most popular around here. I think they do work well with the right accommodation but even with the grant there is cheaper ways to feed calves.
- Location
- Worcestershire
I settled on a mobile mixer and pre heated water element on a timer
Tip power in, mix
pens of ten on titty feeder with sections
If it dosnt pay to get some else to to it would you want to be doing it any way.
Tip power in, mix
pens of ten on titty feeder with sections
If it dosnt pay to get some else to to it would you want to be doing it any way.
We have a holm & laue auto feeder. Just finished our 6th year on it. Works very well for us and suits our system. You still need to be popping in the shed to check the alarm list a few times a day (they might have updated this by now with an app or something). Cleanliness also important as always. One thing I would say is you wouldn’t want calves of all sorts of ages in one pen. So our heifer calves are born in a 6 week block so they’re all similar age in each pen (20 per pen).
First year involved a lot of tweaking (powder, sorting out drainage in shed) but the calves have absolutely thrived on it since. Happy to answer any questions you have.
TheRanger
Member
- Location
- SW Scotland
Have replacement heifer calves on an auto feeder (13 years old, but reliable and working well) on a decent milk powder (6.5L per day working out at 30ppl, but that’ll be up significantly on the next pallet load by the look of things).
AA beef calves are in hutches on colostrum/waste milk, topped up with milk powder if necessary. They’re probably on 8L per day on average.
This works well for us as I wouldn’t want to feed replacements any waste milk from a disease prevention point of view. The ones in hutches generally do quite a bit better. Time wise the feeder probably does save a bit of time, and is definitely more flexible time wise. But there probably isn’t that much in it overall. We clean the teats with a disinfectant spray 3x per day and replace them probably twice a week.
If I had the funds to buy a new auto feeder, I’d probably spend it on hutches with decent penning and a nicely drained concrete base to site them, and a basic milk cart type machine that you could use with waste milk and/or powder.
I think I’v seen @coomoo post pics of his setup, which looked ideal.
AA beef calves are in hutches on colostrum/waste milk, topped up with milk powder if necessary. They’re probably on 8L per day on average.
This works well for us as I wouldn’t want to feed replacements any waste milk from a disease prevention point of view. The ones in hutches generally do quite a bit better. Time wise the feeder probably does save a bit of time, and is definitely more flexible time wise. But there probably isn’t that much in it overall. We clean the teats with a disinfectant spray 3x per day and replace them probably twice a week.
If I had the funds to buy a new auto feeder, I’d probably spend it on hutches with decent penning and a nicely drained concrete base to site them, and a basic milk cart type machine that you could use with waste milk and/or powder.
I think I’v seen @coomoo post pics of his setup, which looked ideal.