Raising Bottle Calves
Who doesn’t love baby cows? They’re adorable! I’ve had bucket calves and bottle calves in the past. I raised one bucket calf, named Patches, after her momma stepped on her and broke her leg and she wasn’t able to be out in the pasture for several months.
Patches, with her broken leg in a cast. Circa 2002
Bottle babies become friendly adults, because they become more used to human presence than the average herd animal. It doesn’t hurt that when they see you they typically are about to be fed some deliciousness too. It sounds like fun, until you’re out in the pasture a few years later and a thousand pound animal spots you and starts running straight at you.
Bottle babies are not all sunshine and rainbows though, they’re hard work and a bit of a challenge. You have to remember that the sweet little calf will grow quickly into a big cow, and that while they might fit in your old dog pen for a couple months, they’re going to need somewhere to go once they’ve grown.
Calves poop. A lot. This may seem obvious, because of course they do! All animals do! But if you’ve never had a farm animal living in your backyard, you may not understand the implications. Personally, I don’t find the smell of cow poop offensive. Most people do. But either way, it smells. And that smell draws in flies. So. Many. Flies. They’re everywhere, they’re awful, they’re annoying, and sometimes they bite. Fly traps work, somewhat, but those smell even worse than the cow poop. Fly tape works, though less well than the bag traps. I’ve heard rumors about adding a teaspoon of ACV (apple cider vinegar) to your animal’s drinking water, not enough that they won’t drink the water, and that it changes the pH of their bodily waste in a way that makes it less appetizing to bugs. This theory hasn’t been tested by me, so I don’t know if it’s true- experiment at your own risk.
In my experience, bottle calves tend to have more medical issues than other calves. Calves (and all babies) get their immune system from their mother’s milk, so perhaps having a bottle calf drinking milk replacer doesn’t get all the good stuff in the milk that other calves do. Or perhaps its a bottle calf because it’s already a medical nightmare! Or maybe because you’re up close and personal with them multiple times a day you just notice more readily when they’re not feeling well.
Raising animals is hard work. Raising bottle calves is even harder. And once they’re weaned off the bottle they don’t get any easier. Many bottle babies around the farm are bottle babies because of pre-existing medical issues and don’t end up surviving until adulthood. Its never easy to lose an animal, especially one you’ve been putting so much care and work into. These animals are loved, they’re family, they’re children. But it’s very rewarding to watch them grow, survive and thrive.
Is it worth the work? Absolutely.
So you’ve got yourself a bottle calf, now what?
First step: Gather up some supplies you’ll need.
Most important, a calf bottle, which holds 4 pints of liquid, and the nipple of your choosing. In the past, they only ever had the rubber ones that you had to pull down over the mouth of the bottle and they are a pain! But some wonderful soul that was sick of dealing with those invented a screw on cap and they’re reaping the benefits for sure! The screw on nipples are the bees knees! So much easier than the old way. You do still have to make sure you unscrew the lid after the bottle is empty because that suction makes them really hard to get off especially after they sit for a minute. The heat from the warm milk does science to those nipples once the liquid is gone and every once in a while they get stuck on a little too good for me to get them off myself.
Next up, milk. Look for a bag that says calf milk replacer, when in doubt, ask someone who works there, they’ll lead you in the right direction. The bags of milk replacer in Northern California this year are running around and upwards of $75 per bag, and (depending on the size of your calf) will last a single calf about a month. So if you (are crazy) have 4 bottle babies at once, you’ll be spending $75 per week on milk.
Calves get most of their nutrients from milk and if they’re new babies won’t need hay or grain for several weeks. But they should still have access to a salt lick. Selenium Salt Blocks are what the vet recommends for calves and adult cattle alike, so it won’t go to waste. They are large and heavy but they do have little indents on the sides to use as handles to haul them around to where you want to put them. Make sure they’re not sitting in the rain or near dripping water as they are made of salt and will dissolve and the calves won’t have benefited from them. One block costs about $10, and they last a while. One block lasted my 3 calves until they were old enough to go out into the pasture (where they have access to different salt licks) and most of it is still there to use for the next inevitable set of bottle babies.
Some other helpful items to have on hand:
Rope halters come in handy if ever you need to catch them and hold them still. When they’re little they’re pretty easily handle-able, but once they’ve grown a bit and they outweigh you it’s much harder to get them to cooperate if they don’t want to- for example when you have to give them medicine, or when they’re feeling under the weather and don’t want to take the bottle, but you know they need to eat it.
We like to have extra packets of ReSorb electrolyes on hand at all times because our calves have gotten scours* at very inconvenient times, like on Sundays and holiday weekends when the local stores are closed, or when the stores are sold out, or when you just don’t have time to run into town. It’s so much more convenient to have a couple packets to get you through until you can get more. Each packet contains one “dose” total and they run between $5 and $10 a packet, depending on where you buy it.
*Scours is basically diarrhea. Its difficult to tell in cattle because their feces is naturally mostly liquid (cow patties, anyone?) and baby poop tends to be of the mustard yellow color variation.
Side note: Animals will always have issues at the most inconvenient times. The first thunderstorm with a torrential downpour you’ve had in a year? Yeah, that’s when your heifer will try to give birth to her first calf and it’ll get stuck and you’ll have to pull it. Longest, hottest heat wave of the whole summer, with unrelenting triple digit temperatures? Your calf will get pink eye and pneumonia and go down. It’s one of those Murphy’s laws. Better to be prepared.
I like to have a medical kit for the animals. This can be as simple or as elaborate as you feel comfortable with. Mine includes medications I’ve used frequently, such as Scour Halt, Nuflor and Banamine that I purchased from my vet. I have some needles (a mixture of 16 and 18 guage) and syringes in varying sizes from 6ml to 20ml. I also have sanitizing wipes, a rectal thermometer, hand sanitizer, alcohol sanitizing pads, and Nitrile gloves.
Of course, it’s not strictly necessary to purchase any of those until and unless your calf becomes ill. My calves (or more exactly, one particular calf) seemed to always be ill, so it’s simpler for me to have them on hand when I need them, than to have to go into the vet’s office every time one of them starts showing symptoms. Even if you have these items on hand, you still should always check with your vet to make sure you’re treating the symptoms correctly, and are not mixing medications that should not be given together.
Once your calves are bigger, they can start eating hay and grain. Alfalfa is the best hay to feed growing calves, as it has the most protein. My calves were getting controlled amounts of hay and grain at first, but in September (because they were ill, we had a heat wave of 115 for a week and then it dropped straight into the 80’s for two days and then dipped into the 70’s) were getting as much alfalfa as their little hearts desired and two scoops (large feed scoop) of grain per day per calf. I feed them wet cob, which is a corn and grain mixture with molasses on it. It’s like candy for them, they go crazy for it. They were also getting ReSorb and milk bottles even though we technically weaned them off the bottle in August, just because Jolene (RIP) was incredibly sick, to make sure they were getting the best nutrients possible to boost their immune system while it worked overtime.
As with all living things, make sure they have ample access to fresh, clean water at all times. They may not drink much of it when they’re little and drinking bottles, but they still need it available to them in case they become thirsty in between feedings. You don’t want a dehydrated calf.
The best practice for having any animal, even dogs and cats, is to stand there and watch them eat when feeding them. During that time you can see if they are acting strange or out of the ordinary, to alert you that something is amiss. Not eating is the first sign of something being terribly wrong with your animal, especially grazing animals like cattle, sheep, goats, horses etc. (Horses are a whole other ballgame entirely, on keeping them healthy). Perhaps it’s the middle of the day and they’re just too hot to want to eat. But are they drinking water? Have they peed? Was it dark yellow or was it clear? Did they eat breakfast and they’re just not hungry now? Are they laying down more than usual? Are they standing off in a corner away from other animals? Are they holding their head down? These behaviors are clues that will tell you if your animal is not feeling well. Trust me, it’s better to catch it and treat it when it’s the first day rather than once the illness has progressed further.
Also, if you call your vet to ask for an appointment because your animal is sick, they will ask you every single one of those questions, with some additions, when you make that appointment. If your answer to all those questions is “I don’t know,” you’re gonna have a very irritated veterinary staff on your hands, because it may be the vet’s job to diagnose/treat your animal’s illness, but it’s YOUR JOB to be their voice to the vet who’s very likely seeing this animal for the very first time. You have to give all the details so they can piece together the symptoms they never saw into something that can be treated. If you don’t know the answer to those questions because “you have a job and [are] too busy to notice [things like that]” then, sorry, but you shouldn’t have animals. They rely on you for everything. They are children. They are not wild animals who have lived on their own and adapted to taking care of themselves. We domesticated them, now we have to take care of them properly.
Whew! Sorry, didn’t realize I was about to get up on that soap box. Anywho…
Cattle are prey animals, meaning that they are wired for appearing alert and healthy in order to not be hunted by predators. If a cow/calf/steer/bull is laying down and will not stand, it is extremely ill, as laying down makes them vulnerable to predators. Call your vet immediately. Most commonly it’ll be a cow that just calved that goes down, but not always. It’s never a fun experience.
Ask me how I know? Jolene was my nightmare bottle calf. She’s the exception to the rule. Pretty much all the rules in fact. She’s a whole different story. But trust me when I say, it is bad news when cattle go down.
Bottle calves are fun because calves are cute, and when they’re little they’re usually pretty sweet too. It’s always fun to have a tame calf around for visitors to give pats to, children especially love feeding a calf a handful of grain and watching that long tongue come out and curl around their fingers. But know going into it that bottle calves are not sunshine and roses. They’re living creatures, vulnerable in that they’re babies and they’re prey animals. They rely on their human caretakers to know what is best for them, to know when, how and what to feed them, and to notice their signs of distress and how to treat the problem. They are hard work, but they are worth the reward.
XOXO
HH
P.S. If you have or had bottle babies of any sort, I would love to hear your tales of triumph or woe! And send pics!