Post by nextyear on Apr 27, 2024 7:32:15 GMT -5
I have 2 different scenarios/cows that I have calf sharing questions about. For back ground I have calf shared the last few years with one cow (she's raised her cow and a foster calf each year after weaning) and this year I pulled and am bottle raising the calf from another cow. So I have a little experience with both set ups.
The first situation is Lilah. I just bought her about 6 weeks ago and she's been raising her calf 24/7 since November. She was milked a little in the beginning but has small teats and the previous owner just let the calf take over completely. We've never milked her other than a sample we sent in for scc, stolen while the calf nursed one day. We tried one time to bring her in the stanchion and she didn't appreciate it and never let down a drop of milk. We want to start working with her more and weaning the calf with the thought being to lock the calf up 12 hours, milk using the calf for let down and then letting them spend half the day together. If we can get her into a decent routine I'd eventually like to wean the calf totally and milk her once a day. She is currently not bred and I'm not sure if she's cycling (I observed a very licky/lovey day on her that I thought might be but I never saw her try to jump her calf and she wasn't bawling or showing discharge so I'm not totally sure) so I don't want to risk her drying herself off. She has a very small bag, but she's always had a calf on her so maybe she'll have a little more milk then I anticipate? So my question for this situation is how do I best approach calf sharing this late into a lactation? Do I have a chance of training her to milk? Will a 4-5 month old calf even cooperate to nurse in the stanchion with a milker since it wasn't raised that way? I start my calf sharing very differently so jumping in in the middle has been overwhelming to figure out and I keep putting it off.
The second situation is my old cow, Dairy. She has raised all of her own calves as well as 5 foster calves and she has VERY strong mothering instincts. She will attempt to steal any calf she can and she will let any age and stage nurse on her. She is also my very messy cow and it often takes us a solid 15 minutes to clean her teats well enough that I'm comfortable drinking the milk. As a result it has actually been helpful to have the calf initiate let down because if she let down when we start cleaning, we'd miss the letdown completely by the time she's clean enough to put the milker on. But all that said, management would be so much easier if I took her calf away from her this year (Then I can run the 3 calves together and 3 cows together and I don't have to worry about dam raised calves nursing off my cow that I pulled the bottle calf away from). Has anyone ever let a cow raise her calves many years and then switched to pulling and bottle feeding? Did the cow flip out taking her calf away? I'm very nervous this cow will go insane if I take her baby away.... If I did controlled nursing where the calf nurses twice a day, is the mom going to have an equally hard transition anyways since the calf will still be out of her reach? Is there a better way to manage this situation? To complicate it, this cow was dry treated for one quarter that had a staph species in it. so I am also concerned about a calf spreading that around before I can test her and be sure it cleared during the dry period.
Thoughts, opinions and ideas greatly appreciated!
The first situation is Lilah. I just bought her about 6 weeks ago and she's been raising her calf 24/7 since November. She was milked a little in the beginning but has small teats and the previous owner just let the calf take over completely. We've never milked her other than a sample we sent in for scc, stolen while the calf nursed one day. We tried one time to bring her in the stanchion and she didn't appreciate it and never let down a drop of milk. We want to start working with her more and weaning the calf with the thought being to lock the calf up 12 hours, milk using the calf for let down and then letting them spend half the day together. If we can get her into a decent routine I'd eventually like to wean the calf totally and milk her once a day. She is currently not bred and I'm not sure if she's cycling (I observed a very licky/lovey day on her that I thought might be but I never saw her try to jump her calf and she wasn't bawling or showing discharge so I'm not totally sure) so I don't want to risk her drying herself off. She has a very small bag, but she's always had a calf on her so maybe she'll have a little more milk then I anticipate? So my question for this situation is how do I best approach calf sharing this late into a lactation? Do I have a chance of training her to milk? Will a 4-5 month old calf even cooperate to nurse in the stanchion with a milker since it wasn't raised that way? I start my calf sharing very differently so jumping in in the middle has been overwhelming to figure out and I keep putting it off.
The second situation is my old cow, Dairy. She has raised all of her own calves as well as 5 foster calves and she has VERY strong mothering instincts. She will attempt to steal any calf she can and she will let any age and stage nurse on her. She is also my very messy cow and it often takes us a solid 15 minutes to clean her teats well enough that I'm comfortable drinking the milk. As a result it has actually been helpful to have the calf initiate let down because if she let down when we start cleaning, we'd miss the letdown completely by the time she's clean enough to put the milker on. But all that said, management would be so much easier if I took her calf away from her this year (Then I can run the 3 calves together and 3 cows together and I don't have to worry about dam raised calves nursing off my cow that I pulled the bottle calf away from). Has anyone ever let a cow raise her calves many years and then switched to pulling and bottle feeding? Did the cow flip out taking her calf away? I'm very nervous this cow will go insane if I take her baby away.... If I did controlled nursing where the calf nurses twice a day, is the mom going to have an equally hard transition anyways since the calf will still be out of her reach? Is there a better way to manage this situation? To complicate it, this cow was dry treated for one quarter that had a staph species in it. so I am also concerned about a calf spreading that around before I can test her and be sure it cleared during the dry period.
Thoughts, opinions and ideas greatly appreciated!