Bottle Baby Advice Needed!

[SCLeppyLvr]

Hi everyone! I am new to BYH, and need advice. We just brought home a little Red Angus "leppy" heifer yesterday! New to the bottle baby thing, we had a steer calf last year that was a bottle baby but not by the time we got him. Unfortunately he died at about 5 months old of unknown causes. So I am very much in need of advice regarding the new baby girl. Anyone out there that is knowledgeable on bottle feeding and weaning, and what to watch for??? All help and advice is appreciated.

 

[Azriel]

First, don't over feed, a hungry calf is a healthy calf. Stay with the all milk based replacer. Make sure she is warm, dry and out of drafts.
What are your plans for her, future cow or freezer? I think people wean their bottle calves way to early. If I'm growing them for a future breeding cow, I don't wean them till they are about 5months and on both grass and feed. I don't like the the skinny pot bellied look of the calves weaned at 2 months. Might cost more, but thats my choice.

 

[SCLeppyLvr]

She is about 3 weeks old from a ranch locally. she is from an older cow and the cow didn't get back up after calving so the ranch hands put her down. the calf was taken to the barn and fed by admission of the hand who met us, usually a bottle and a half in the mornings and SOMETIMES another bottle in the evening if they could get back over there to feed her. She is a bit thin. we picked her up at 10:00 PDT yesterday morning which the hand said she had one bottle that morning, we fed her a bottle at about 12:30pm after we got her home and she had time to settle for about an hour or so. she drank like she hadn't eaten. we gave her one more bottle at 6:00pm. so as far as I know or am concerned she had 4 quarts yesterday. We fed her at 7:45 this morning 2 qts, and again at 1:45pm 2 qts, and plan for another at 7:45 this evening. She does not appear to have been drinking water, we have a 2 gallon bucket and it was full to the rim still, so maybe she just hasn't figured that out. she does not eat hay or grain yet. Am I feeding too much bottle? and how do I get her to start water? I tried letting her suck my fingers and pull her head down to the bucket, but that doesn't work, so I just dip my fingers in the water and then she sucks the water off them.

 

[SCLeppyLvr]

using my beef tape I measured her at 36.5 inches so I figure she is about 160 pounds. is that normal for her age?

 

[SCLeppyLvr]

and she is super hungry at each bottle. today she was trying to bump the bottle too, so cute!

 

[jhm47]

You're lucky she's 3 weeks old, or she'd have scours by now. Every milk replacer that I'm familiar with is to be fed twice daily, and 2 quarts per feeding. Overfeeding kills more calves than anything else. Feed her two quarts per feeding, and only twice a day. Most calf starters are formulated for dairy calves, and a Holstein calf will almost always be 10 - 20 lbs heavier than a Red Angus calf. Start her on a top quality calf starter as soon as possible. She will learn to drink water when she needs it. Getting her started on calf starter will encourage her to start on the water also, as she will need to drink more in order to digest the dry starter. Good luck with your calf!

 

[SCLeppyLvr]

so should I give her a bottle then tonight? and then just go to two a day beginning tomorrow? I was only concerned she was undernourished because of only getting one bottle a day :-( I don't wanna make her sick tho.

 

[jhm47]

If I were you, I'd give her a quart (and a half measure of replacer) tonight. Then tomorrow you can start on the twice daily feedings. Don't try to correct mistakes that occurred in the past, just focus on doing things right from now on and she'll be fine. The fact that she survived 3 weeks of mistakes is a good sign. However, if she had been overfed from birth to now she'd likely not have survived. As you have noticed, calves appear to be starving when they finish their bottle. This is actually due to their sucking reflex not being satisfied, not because they are overly hungry. Just today, I watched some of my newborn calves as they sucked on their mothers. They drank rapidly for a couple minutes, and then switched from teat to teat and seemed to be playing for about 20 minutes. I know they are getting plenty of milk from their mothers, but they need to have a certain amount of time just sucking and playing to be satisfied.

 

[SCLeppyLvr]

ok I will do that, just so it's not such a span from this afternoon til tomorrow morning. Thank you for responding so quickly! We let her suck our fingers when she finishes the bottle until she seems disinterested.

 

[Azriel]

If she still wants to suck when done with the bottle, put some calf starter in her mouth and let her get a taste of it. I just let them suck on the heel of my hand and trickle the feed into their mouth it'll take a few days, but she will start eating it, I just leave a bucket of starter in the pen and then you won't worry about her starving between feedings. If you really want to feed her 3 times a day you could divide the 4 quarts into 3 feedings, but really 2 feedings a day are fine.