Today was the day I picked to start teaching my "bottle babies" to drink from a bucket instead of the bottle. I have five calves I am raising, they came from a dairy farm not far away, about an hours drive. They are jersey holstien cross. We go and buy bull calves from them for $20 dollars and raise them up for beef and some to sell at the sell barn. This is our second set we bought from this farm, we bought nine last year around feb./march. They are doing well out in the pasture now, although it took us quit a while to get them to stay IN the pasture. Once they find a way out they keep getting out daily. We were finally able to light up the electric fence and they haven't gotten out since.YEAH!

Anyway, back to the bottle babies. I try to get them drinking from a bucket as soon as possible......it is way easier in the long run and less time consuming. I have the chickens to take care of and that takes up alot of my time.  They have been on the bottle for two weeks now and so I decided to see if they would even try the bucket.

I made up the bottles like always, dh and I went out to the barn, pulled one calf out at a time and poured the bottle in a bucket. While dh held the bucket I would let the calf suck on my fingers while leading them down into the bucket. Sometimes it works right away, sometimes it takes several tries. They usually have to have my finger in thier mouth the whole time, or at least close by for when they realize they have nothing in thier mouth to suck on....even though there is milk going in.LOL  I will have to do it this way for several feedings most likely, but this group seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly.

I have had some that refused to drink from the bucket unless I actually took the nipple from the bottle and sank it  down into the milk in the bucket so they would think they were using a bottle! And one from last year refused to drink from the bucket no matter what I did....I tried for days with that one. Finally I just let him skip a feeding one day and he realized that if he wanted to eat he had to use the bucket! NO BULLS WERE HARMED IN THE BOTTLE TO BUCKET TRAINING! LOL

They will continue to get thier milk for another month or more, but soon I will be introducing calf grower feed to them. along with the hay and pasture. They actually get hay now, but they just lay in it, they don't realize it is food.LOL

AH THE PLEASURES OF FARMING!!! LOL

This isn't anything new to us....we have raised like 4 or 5 sets of calves this way. The most at one time being the nine from last year.....THAT WON'T BE HAPPENING AGAIN!  Usually I am the main one feeding the calves and when there were nine it was just way to much to deal with.  But 4 or 5 are not to bad, especially now that we have a barn. I can leave all of them locked in a stall and pull them out one at a time and when he is done I put him out in the paddock and pull out another one. It takes a while, but is less painful on my back than trying to feed 2 or 3 at the same time.Lots of pushing, and knocking and sucking on whatever is closest going on with more than one at a time. Sometimes I thought a rain suit would be perfect at feeding time.LOL

Thanks for visiting.

Nancy

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Posted by Kitty

OK I have it. Tell Paul to invent a bucket with a nipple at the bottom of it. Feed them with that for a day or two then replace it with a reg bucket. Viola, the deed is done. Im brilliant! LOL LOL LOL.......Kitty

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