c Native breeds (like yours) tend to have a much better survival instinct and more persistence at suckling than continentals. I have never had a healthy calf that didn't suck
when hungry, but have had a few that I was pretty sure hadn't fed, completely refused the bottle of colostrum I'd made for them, then in the struggle to get some down them, produced the classic yellow bowel movement that proved they had fed after all.
The calf won't starve now if you leave him for at least 12 hours without tubing to see what happens. I know you're getting conflicting opinions on this as we've all had different experiences. But nature has produced a very effective way of cows and calves responding to each other. The calf initiates the milk let down by either nuzzling the udder, or bellowing because it's hungry. But it won't do either if its stomah is full.
I had a Hereford heifer calve outside a few weeks ago. She was a bit reticent about letting the calf suckle - pushing it away with her back leg and moving off, but she obviously wasn't going to beat it up or kick its head in, so I kept a close eye on them all day. I never saw it suckle once, so come dusk I decided to try some of that colostrum powder I got free in the Rumenco calving pack. (Thanks Rumenco - greatly appreciated.
) But my son checked as it got up from it its straw nest where it had seemed to be all day, and there was the classic yellow bowel movement of digested colostrum. I never saw that calf actually feed off its mother for the next days, but it obviously was, and it's doing fine.
