Multi suckling calves

[yorkshire8]

Does anyone still do it?
I rear 15 calves a month and I was wondering what the pros and cons are in doing this . Was thinking could save money on milk powder and the calves would grow quicker! How much feed would the cow need and how many calves could you put on her?

 

[milkloss]

Some say it's the best thing since sliced bread but in my experience it's another animal to go wrong. Mastitis can be a big issue especially if you're buying an ex dairy cow to do it.

 

[som farmer]

.I used to do it, one of the problems people forget, is you have to feed the cow, like a dairy cow, 2 or 3 calves, can easily drink 10 litres each, then feed her hay, and couple of kg cake, where as, she is working hard, and if not fed, will rapidly go down hill, then e'coli mastitus is a killer. The best way, we found, was to keep them separate, and let the cows in overnight, or similar, I used 'cheap' dairy cows, out of dispersals, some were good, some allright, and some would never take to calves. But, if you got a good cow, and you fed her properly- decent forage, and plenty of conc, you could get 2/3 lots of calves off her, never got many back in calf though. The secret is, work out how much milk the calves will take, and feed the cow for the litres you need.
Setting the calves, on the new cow, can be frustrating, the way we ended up doing it, was confining her to a small pen, ours were 10ftx10ft, and put 4 calves in, while she tries to get 1 calf off, the other 3 dive in, sometimes a halter was needed, sometimes a span, soon as, take 1 or 2 calves off, in less than a week. Tried it with beef cows, and found it very hard, and they don't really give enough milk. Good luck.

 

[Hfd Cattle]

When I started on my own I made every cow rear 2 calves . I had a regular supply that I could pick one up very quickly and plaster it in the water bag and fluids to make the cow take it . I was always careful to make sure the cows own calf had plenty of colostrum but after that I just left them to it . Occasionally a cow would object but I shut them up tight and she would resign herself to it . All foster calves were removed after 14 wks and the original calf would be left on mum .
Did it for about 5 yrs but slowly the dairy farms around all diminished and it became harder to get calves. In my opinion it was very successful but you did have to keep plenty of grub in front of the cows . I didn't fancy 'multi suckling ' as it meant you had to be tied to it night and morning and I was ,at the time, also working for a local contractor driving in a spud gang . Would I do it again ......no ...but only cos I'm older and tireder '
Father used to say " a cow suckling 2 calves will be harder to get back in calf" but I didn't find this a problem .

 

[Kiwi Pete]

^^^^ you gotta be able to feed them as per "a milker"

I cheated as I was a dairy farmer for half my life and have a rough idea how to sort things out when they go bad - and things do go bad!

The right cows for the job make it really easy by comparison to the wrong cows, and there are a lot of those about.
Cows have been selected to feed their own calf OR feed a milking machine for a long time, you really need the benefit of the genetics selected for feeding the milking machine, to do it well year in year out.
A lot of beefies just run out of milk and look after themselves too much.

A good dairy cow will feed ten a year with no problems, but you do have to manage the weaning of each batch and keep her milking while the new batch get going. Best start for calves though!

Batching them I typically wean at around 90kg otherwise your next batch is late.

I did it for quite a few years (while dairying) and just started again with some hand-reared heifers (this season), we calved them late and put them straight out with their extras onto grass, fed them veg or a wee lick of grain and they figured it out from then on in.

 

[cull cows]

When my dad gave over milking we kept 5 or 6 old cows.
We used to bring them in twice a day.
We would tie the cows up in the shippon and let the calves out to suck.4 to each cow.
It worked very well we let all the cavles out at once and they all went and found a teat.

 

[Cmoran]

I do it here buy all cull fr cows of same man every year most do be in calf and when they two days calved I put two more calves on never have to intervene touch wood!! I get the calfs from same farmer buy all his Calfs every year he lets them suck for first 3 days so they go straight under cow as soon as they put in pen. Let them to grass after a week or so the younger cows run with bull and rarely don’t prove in calf cow gets no nuts once on grass and wean them in September. It’s worked here for last 10 years and always better Calfs than my bucket reared

 

[Tippfarmer]

Sounds like a great system. Is it profitable?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Sounds like a great system. Is it profitable?

Yes, can be very profitable, cheap dairy cull cows are a big bonus if you offload them before winter.

Normal system, one cow one calf less wintering costs is a break-even job more or less
Add in the savings and multiply the calf income

It's not all sunshine and birdsong but it can work out very well

 

[som farmer]

Yes, can be very profitable, cheap dairy cull cows are a big bonus if you offload them before winter.

Normal system, one cow one calf less wintering costs is a break-even job more or less
Add in the savings and multiply the calf income

It's not all sunshine and birdsong but it can work out very well

and it is not an easy way to rear calves, as in pens, a lot of effort is needed, to make it work. In our case, the price of milk powder shot up, and we decided to milk a few cows, for the milk, we ended up, with a herd of cows, and a big bulk tank !!!!!

 

[t murrr]

Has anyone ever tried milking a few old cows through a old style parlour and feeding the calves straight off the parlour ie no bulk tank just into a bulk feeder and do it that way suppose the wash out could be the problem unless the bulk feeder is on wheels or toe able by a quad

 

[som farmer]

Has anyone ever tried milking a few old cows through a old style parlour and feeding the calves straight off the parlour ie no bulk tank just into a bulk feeder and do it that way suppose the wash out could be the problem unless the bulk feeder is on wheels or toe able by a quad

that was our idea, except it ended up going back to milking a biggish herd, but we were going to use a shippon type system, air line, and milk into a bucket, very simple, if old fashioned, ended up with a 24/24 herringbone !!!!!!

 

[Blaithin]

I do it but as said, there are things that are a pain.

The more efficient option is buy yourself a good milk machine and milk out the cows to bottle feed the calves. A cow producing 9 gallons a day would be able to manage 2 calves 24/7, would probably start to get run down with 3 on 24/7 but could feed 4 if you milked her and bottle fed them. Also saves her udder.

Or another option is limiting the calves to 2-3 times a day feedings.

 

[t murrr]

I was thinking along the lines of a old parlour shippon would do either can buy a old parlour complete for about 4k .Milk a small amount of cows morn and night and feed the calves off this system could feed the 4 calves a day if milked twice what u think our farm is split by a road graze cows on right hand side and graze the calves off the yard left hand side calves could come in every morn and eve for feed and meal

 

[t murrr]

Ment to say 4 calves per cow

 

[Tippfarmer]

Yes, can be very profitable, cheap dairy cull cows are a big bonus if you offload them before winter.

Normal system, one cow one calf less wintering costs is a break-even job more or less
Add in the savings and multiply the calf income

It's not all sunshine and birdsong but it can work out very well

What age do you sell the calves at?

 

[t murrr]

I do it but as said, there are things that are a pain.

The more efficient option is buy yourself a good milk machine and milk out the cows to bottle feed the calves. A cow producing 9 gallons a day would be able to manage 2 calves 24/7, would probably start to get run down with 3 on 24/7 but could feed 4 if you milked her and bottle fed them. Also saves her udder.

Or another option is limiting the calves to 2-3 times a day feedings.

What amount of a margin would these leave seems like a lot of work just put that out there to see would anyone rate this way of rearing calves .Would not be much saving in buying powder but calves would be better only advantage

 

[Dead Rabbits]

I’ve done it. I don’t know about it being the most profitable but I think it would be currently. Cows are cheap, grain is cheap and calves are cheap. Powder is still high.

We did it to rear replacements. 2-3 calves per cow for about 6 months. A cow was selected, put in a 12x20 pen and calves turned in. Once bonded for a week to 10 days they were added to a herd of other nurse cows.

They have to be fed like a dairy cow on highquality forage with some grain.
The cows are difficult to get bred back. Some cows don’t take calves, some cows will kill a calf.

Its definitely less work than putting them on feeders and doesn’t require much infrastructure.

 

[t murrr]

We run a suckler herd but think you could be right in the current climate a man round us buys loads of British friesian bulls and Angus cross bulls from farms and he reckons could be as profitable as any 1000 a head all day long hung now that was before the downturn in beef prices think that is a bit optimistic although he is buying the calves by the lorry load ? Takes money to get into that game though

 

[som farmer]

2001, at the old taunton mkt, bought 57 calves, mostly beefx hfrs, cheque was less than £500, did think it was a bad idea, afterwards, getting 57 calves on the bucket, not much fun !