The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Cattle => Topic started by: Sprig on November 05, 2020, 10:21:18 am
-
I am quite early in my thought process but would probably like to raise some calves next year. Does anyone here do that? Any top tips? I am also wondering if I might send them to slaughter young and sell as veal. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks
-
Buy your calves from a high health herd with good colostrum management- BVD, johnes, IBR free would be my first tip!
-
Thanks Twizzel.
-
We send our homebred calves off, usually unweaned, at 10 months ish. They've been on their mum's milk and grass, never had cake and never had stress, and the meat is awesome.
The meat won't be as awesome reared by hand, but it was worth telling you, I thought.
I've reared bought-in calves before, both on and not on a cow, and if rearing by hand then my advice is :
- buy them at one month old, not younger. Calves which are going to die usually do it in the first month.
- budget for losses. With small numbers you should go many years without losses, but you will lose one now and again, and very occasionally may lose a batch.
- if you can find a local dairy farm where you can buy them directly, that is a much better source than buying at auction
- buy castrated males, at least while you are learning
- buy beef cross calves if you can; pure dairy calves won't have as much meat on them (although pure Jersey is incredible meat). The purchase price will reflect that, though, so maybe try beef cross the first year then try pure Jersey the next, and see what the returns and profit looks like. You can usually buy pure Jersey bull calves for peanuts (I've seen a pair a few days old for a fiver), whereas a decent Limousin cross or Hereford or Angus cross will be a few £hundred.
- they need milk up to 8 weeks as an absolute minimum. 2L twice a day from a month old is actually much better for them than bigger feeds. If you do get them younger than a month old, they need 3 feeds a day up to a month old.
- you need top quality soft hay for them when they are very young. They need hay from a few days old.
- Young calves can't stand being wet, so they need housing in winter.
- humid, static, warm air kills calves, so make sure that wherever you house them is very well-ventilated. Drafty is better than stagnant air, but best of all is an upper air flow that draws the air out of the pen.
- Teach them to eat cake as you wean them, then give them a little cake twice a day even when the grass is good. (We don't cake ours but they stay on mum's milk. Hand reared need a bit of cake.) If you want to do grass fed, you can get grass pellets : moisten them / mix them with soaked sugar beet shreds while they are learning to eat them. They don't need much, just a small feed, twice a day if poss.
- They don't grow much over winter (but they eat and make work!), so aim to be sending them off at the end of summer / autumn.
-
Two recent calves away from here :
1) Luther (1/4 Jersey 1/4 Red Devon 1/2 Angus.) Castrated at one week. Not weaned, grass and milk only. Sent away at 10 months old, unweaned, 244kgs deadweight
2) Odin (1/2 Jersey 1/2 Angus.) Uncastrated. Mother died at 1 month old, hand-reared on cows' milk (not from here but fresh from the cows) from thereon. Weaned at 3 months. A bit of grass pellets once a day, otherwise just grass (decent pasture) from thereon. Sent away at 7 months old, 122 kgs deadweight.
Odin was the half-brother of Flare, the mother of the first. (Flare was Hillie Jersey x Red Devon.)
Not directly comparable, of course, but some of the difference was age, some breeding and some the difference in reared on mum vs hand-reared.
This year we have Northern Dairy Shorthorn cross calves, one born here and one bought in (one calf born dead so we bought a replacement from the herd we got the in-calf heifers from.) So far I am well impressed. Much hardier than Jerseys, much better shape (more meat at the back end), and they are growing on well. The one born here is 1/4 Jersey (mum is 1/2 Jersey 1/2 NDS) and the bought-in is Friesian x NDS. The same cow is feeding both, with both getting a bit of a top-up from the other cow (who is 1/4 Jersey.)
-
Sally, thanks so much that has been brilliantly helpful. I really appreciate you taking the time to give me so much detail.
-
I would agree with sally on everything apart from the hay bit- baby calves need good quality straw and calf pellets, hay will make them “gutty” and not develop the rumen as well. We fed our odd orphaned beef calves twice a day from day olds, between 3-4litres a feed (3 litres an absolute minimum, building up as they got older).
-
I had read that about hay, thank-you.
-
Well, we can agree that they need good quality straw ;). And I would agree that top quality barley straw alone would be better than poor, old or scratchy hay; if they do have hay it must be excellent quality soft hay for the best outcome.