Okay, a lot of people say bottle feeding calves is a difficult process. Well, I’m not going to lie to you- it can be. Just like most things included in homesteading, raising bottle calves is not for everyone. We think it’s one of the best things you can do on the homestead. Bottle fed calves will become a part of the family and will provide you hours and days of smiles and heartwarming experience. Yes, this can be difficult, but if you have these three things, it’s going to be a lot easier. Here are what we think are the three things you need to bottle feed baby calves.
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| My messy boys really had fun one morning with their bottles!! |
1. Passion
This probably goes without saying, but without passion for what you’re doing, it’s going to be miserable. Animals are smart creatures. So if they see that what you’re doing is out of love, they’ll probably respond accordingly! In my opinion, calves are some of the cutest and most entertaining of all the baby animals. They will not only sense your love and passion for them, they will return it also! It’s so rewarding to have a calve nuzzle your hand, or lick you!
2. Committment
This is the tricky part for a lot of people. Especially when it comes to raising calves on the bottle. To be blunt- calves are like your babies. They have to be fed twice a day. And not just randomly sometime in the morning and sometime at night. They need a very strict and specific routine. Which means I have to have a strict and specific routine. This committment builds on your passion (see above!)- if you aren’t passionate about raising bottle calves, then you won’t stick to the routine. Our calves know that they get fed at 9:30 am and again at 7:30 pm. And remember we talked about them being smart? Guess what? They know when it’s feeding time and they’re waiting at the gate!
So, commitment. This is the hardest thing because many people don’t realize what this entails. Want to go out to eat with friends? You need to be home by 7:30 to feed your calves! Going on vacation? Well, that’s not going to happen unless you have friends who would be willing to stick with your schedule for you while you’re gone. Want to sleep really late one morning, or just stay lazy all morning? Gotta go feed those bottle calves! It’s tough. But, if you have the passion, you can hold to the committment, and then you will get the rewards!
3. Time
This last thing is difficult too. There are only 24 hours in a day, right? And in the society we live in, most people have all 24 of those hours packed with stuff to do. The actual act of bottle feeding doesn’t take that long. We have found that it takes about 10 minutes for the calves to drink their bottle. But that’s not all you have to do- the bottles need to be prepared and filled. This is the most lengthy part of the bottle feeding process. In our case, we milk our cow and give the milk straight to the calves- so it’s already warm. But if you are feeding formula or cold milk, you have to warm it up- which could take up to 30 minutes depending on how many calves you have. Once a bottle is filled, it is set in a bucket of hot water until it heats up to the right temperature. And once the calves are finished, the bottles will need to be cleaned and washed, then left to dry for the next feeding.
So the bottom line for the time factor- if you can set away an hour in the morning and an hour at night each day, you can get this done!
However, I do have a slight warning: Sometimes, you’ll need extra time. You never know if one of them will get sick or require extra attention. That 10 minutes I mentioned above, that’s how it is when there are no issues with the calves drinking. For example, when our goats had babies and I had to help them drink milk, I was getting up every three hours to help them. This included during the night. BUT IT WAS SO REWARDING.
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| See that tongue?! He knew it was almost milking time! |
This post is not meant to scare anybody. But there’s no point in sugar coating bottle feeding calves. It can be easy, it can be difficult, but ultimately bottle feeding calves is an incredible experience! I have raised 24 since the beginning of the year and it is only getting more and more rewarding. At our peak, we raised 60 in one year!
The biggest take-away point is that it when you are bottle feeding calves (or anything for that matter), they become just like your children and you have to treat them as such!
So don’t be afraid- be prepared! And enjoy!
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