Milk replacer vs store bought milk?

[whitebearhomestead]

Okay here I am with yet another question already. I’m doing the math here…

I had mentioned in my previous post sourcing raw milk from a friend who owns a conventional dairy. Bigredcow mentioned Johnes disease and it not being worth the risk with raising a family milk cow. I completely agree. Then I got thinking why not supplement her milk replacer with store bought whole milk? She is currently getting 2 bottles (4 quarts total a day). She has been home one day and that is how much they were feeding her. She is a 3 week old mid size jersey x mini highland cross. We are going to work on getting her up to three bottles a day and are providing calf starter (something the breeder had started her on) and we are offering alfalfa hay and water of course. I was thinking using store bought milk for that mid day bottle would be nice since I would slowly work her up to a full bottle I could just measure out how much I want, warm it, and not have to worry about dividing and calculating how much milk replacer etc for a 1 pint bottle as we slowly work up on that third bottle (given midday) to avoid scours.
We bought from the breeder the land o lakes medicated cold front calf feed because this is what they were feeding her and I wanted to minimize stress. Right now she is getting one gallon a day. At $97 dollars for a 50 pound bag, 1.25 pounds milk replacer for 4 quarts of milk equals $2.43 for a gallon of milk. I can buy whole milk from Walmart for $2.68 for a difference of only $.25 a gallon.

What am I missing here?? Wouldn’t it be healthier and easier to just feed her the fresh whole milk from Walmart? No it isn’t organic or grass fed but neither is her milk replacer? Yes it is pasteurized but so is the milk replacer? Am I crazy for thinking of transitioning her off of milk replacer to just whole milk? Considering I have a 50 pound bag to still work through I would probably do one bottle milk replacer and 2 whole milk?

[bigredcow]

There are mixed opinions about feeding grocery store milk. Some people swear it works great, others swear it doesn't work because it's homogenized. It's going to have more fat than a 26/20 MR. The jersey cowsmatch MR would be comparable as a fat percentage

LOL Milk replacer will have prebiotics and probiotics, a coccidiastat. All things cheap grocery milk won't.

[cosyeskimo]

whitebearhomestead , couldn't you just pasteurise your friends raw milk and feed at least whole unhomoganised milk? Not all milk is equal.

[karenp]

I am no help with your question, but a Jersey/highland cross sounds adorable and chance you could post pictures?

[blaithin]

I really don’t understand some people’s love with store bought milk.

It’s insanely expansive (here), for one.

But more important, I don’t have room or time for that stuff.

You’re talking an eventual jug a day, so 7 jugs a week. Do you have room to store 7 jugs of milk? Do you go to town multiple times a week?

I don’t have the space, or the inclination to drive into town that often. I don’t live that close.

Replacer gets bought about once a month.
It’s a lot of hassle just to try and avoid measuring.

Weigh up half a bottle worth of replacer, place it back in the measuring cup, mark a line. Weigh up 3/4 of a bottle worth, put it in the cup, mark a line. Now you’ve got a quick way to make part bottles.

[suzorse]

figuring out how much replacer per pint is easy , the replacer I use is the Country Companion supreme 24/20 at 94.00 + tax per 50 lbs , and it is 12 oz powder to 3 qts of water , so that comes to 4 oz per qt or 2 oz per pint , most replacers are 10 oz to 2 qts , 50 lbs of replacer is 800 oz of powder , I would not add a midday bottle but would increase the AM PM bottle, never change what you are feeding abruptly on a bottle calf all changes need to be slow , mixing store milk or raw in with the replacer , not instead of it , I would up her AM PM by 1 pint , and wait 4 days if no scours you can up again , if at anytime you have a problem drop back down , some calves you never can increase , and others are at a gal twice a day fairly quickly , my replacer is 1.68 per gal and the cheapest store milk I can get close is 2.99 per gal , Walmart is 20 + miles 1 way for me , and it is still 1.00 or more per gal versus the replacer,
if you have a kitchen food scale ( should be weighing your powder in the beginning ) you will use 2.5 oz per pint of water
Suzanne

[jerseyrose]

My calves were much happier on 3 bottles a day.

I like the convenience of milk replacer over feeding store bought milk. It has all the right minerals and is easy to store and you can stock up without maxing out your fridge space.


They tell you on the bag how many ounces for 2qt or gallon bottle so you can just measure it out with a standard measure cup and make a mark on a plastic cup for future mixing ,but really you get an eye for it after a very short while.

What I really like is I just get the tap water hot and mix it up and feed it. No heating up cold milk.

[lilykuh]

In "The Untold Story of Milk" it has the story of a University scientist who was experimenting on removing adrenal glands from cats, to see how long they could live without one. Sadly, his cats were not waking up from surgery, which he didn't understand. In doing more research, he changed their diet from store bought milk (homogenized), to raw milk, after which all the cats would survive the surgery. He changed his study to focus on milk, and what the effects of raw vs. pasteurized/homogenized milk were. Pasteurized milk is nutritionally valueless since the protein molecules are changed, but not harmful per se, while homogenized milk consumption is linked to heart disease. Better to pasteurize neighbor's milk than to gamble with the store bought stuff.