Bucket feeding suck calves - is it profitable?

millertime78

Thinking ahead to next year, I'm thinking of buying a dozen calves and bucket feeding them. We haven't bucket fed calves since getting out of dairy many years ago.

Any one have any experiences to share? I'd like to know

Costs
Labour involved
Equipment used

Any other feedback?

lakill Farm

Hi Millertime ,

for the last 2 years i have bucket feed calves. 14 last year and 18 this year.

Ok get yourself one or 2 of those multi teat feeders. I have a jfc 10 tit version and i feed 8/10 calves in approx 5 minutes. They say you should leave 1 or 2 teat free at all times.

Costs. well volaic is €40 - €42 a bag and a bag will feed 8 calves twice per day for about 5.5 to 6 days.
After that its straw, and the usual. I IBR And is it BVD? vacinated this year.

ALso loads of fresh water an good good quality hay or if you have haylage and upto 2kg meal a day

Am i geting rich? no. it suits me, with a few acres and we both work full time. Herself wanted cattle and been a townie, the calves are great.

Problems, sourcing calves is a nightmare this year and the price is crazy. Although bulls are easier to find than heifers.

My experence. Give them all 1 efferdryl rehydryate tablet after getting them home in 1 litre of water
Feed twice a day
Buy a food whisk to mix powder and water
keep all buckets clean and washed out

millertime78

Thanks lakill

Do you feed hot or cold?? ....we used to feed hot back in the day.. I guess its what the calves were used to??

Also, how many weeks are you feeding them for??

lakill Farm

We feed until they are eating in excess of 2kg or abut 5lb of meal a day. Normally 10 weeks old approx, but depends on weather,there condition and stuff like that. I normally reduce to one feed, and throw the feeder onto the field gate if they are out and feed them outside.

Oh its hot milk. 3 kettles to the feed is approx.

Oh and if at all possible get them outside every day. especially a nice sunny day with heat.

jay gatsby

Sounds like a good system Lakill, I think the problem is there are a large number of people who won't be able to afford to buy heavier stock and will resort to buying suck calves just to get numbers up.

Therefore i think the prices right into next Spring will be prohibitive if you're looking to make a profit. I'm sure Lakill knows (you too prob - if you were in dairy) as he's been doing it a while that buying in young calves brings major health/time consuming hazards no matter how good you're practices are. Every now and again you get one that just won't drink/ gets stressed and fades/ gets one of those scours that just won't go away and holds them back for weeks etc.

This is not knocking the system - I do a bit myself but young calves are very soft if you've been used to buying in weanlings or stores or some other system.

lakill Farm

Thanks Jay G.

Soft isnt the word. You look at them wrong and they need a jab for something. Also you have to de horn and thats a pain. And decide if with males you can handle the males.

it suits me, but the amount of lads i know that say, "fu$king hardship" and to much work, however its great to see them run around a field in the summer, knowing you reared them. I should have been an auld cow.

And on that note. You coul buy an auld cow with a bad spin, and feed 3 or 4 calves off her. 3 cows would feed 10/12 calves

jay gatsby

Yeah it's very rare you see someone who leaves this system going back to it. It's a lot of work and there is nothing more depressing in farming than looking at a pen of sickly weak calves. you end up spending weeks saying what did I do wrong and is there anything to fix this?

bbam

jay gatsby wrote: »

Yeah it's very rare you see someone who leaves this system going back to it. It's a lot of work and there is nothing more depressing in farming than looking at a pen of sickly weak calves. you end up spending weeks saying what did I do wrong and is there anything to fix this?

I think this is a poor reflection of bucket reared calves...
We've been doing it for years and reared 30 this year...

It's not lots of work if you have a set up and a routine.... 20 minutes feeds about 15-20 calves which aint bad..
OK you'll have to keep them longer than suckled calves...

We'd usually sell them at 13-15 months and this year in particular made great money on them...

In the last 4 years we havn't had the vet callout to one of these calves which we couldn't say for the sucklers...

My advice is know your costs, keep them down, time them to be weaned when grass is ready and get them out ASAP, then plenty of fresh grass..
It's a low profit enterprise so don't expect to become wealthy at it... Importantly it does turn a profit, we found this hard with suckling as with heavy ground our stocking rates are low with big animals.. At least now we have a profit on top of the SFP..

jay gatsby

bbam wrote: »

I think this is a poor reflection of bucket reared calves...
We've been doing it for years and reared 30 this year...

Don't mean to knock the system as a whole - obviously you guys have got it right and it works. However when you're starting out and trying to get milk quants right/keep scour to a minimum and so on it can be tough.

wouldn't tell anyone not to do it as initial outlay on stock being small is just one of the benefits but like all systems it looks a damn sight easier from the outside.

lakill Farm

i agree bbam, once ou get set up your flying. I intend to build a shed just for calves this year, where i can feed 24 - 30 in approx 20 mins in the morning and maybe 30 - 40 mins in the evening.

Now in my eyes thats 40 - 60 mins a day, for 8 weeks. Now if your calving cows you are up 2 or 3 times a night, you coul lose cow and calf and Side exit births etc.

I had the vet out 3 times last year. IBR - vacinate. expensive lesson
This year, i only saw him for the TB test.

bbam

lakill Farm wrote: »

Buy a food whisk to mix powder and water

We use a cheap tesco drill, €12 I think, get a mixer for skim coat, €4 I think..
Tall bucket for mixing and it works a treat....


We also made a water heater and have it on a timer+thermostat, double lagged.

At 6am you don't need to be hanging round for water to heat

who the fug

We used an old top loading washing machine to mix it up

O buy yourself a set of ear plugs twenty caves roaring for their milk first thing in the morning is very loud

lakill Farm

bbam, i like yor idea. actually so much so, im going to organise the drill andplaster mixer asap.

Describe the water heater? is it a berco?

bbam

lakill Farm wrote: »

Describe the water heater? is it a berco?

berco?, no its a meo, me made it

Had a tank from old deep water well pump, called in a favour from a mate who supplied chollar and welded it on to take a 26" immersion, closed up some ports and hey presto... plumbed in it cost about €20, lagged it well, plugged into a timer... The lagging jacket takes the scrapheap challenge look of it..

We make our own hay/straw feeders too, like this only from reebar and not galvanised, about €20 does the trick... calves seem to care less about the galvanising

weefarmer

Well I bought a few this year, back in april my only problem was that they were too late,
They were wasy to feed and I had no sickness thankfully, I was happy enough because I had never dealt with bucket feeding before!
They may or may not be profitable but im not worried because every week id have been spending the €18-20 somewhere else! And now if I wanted I could sell on the creep feeder that I made for them over a few months!
Im actually saving at the minute in the hope of buying some more soon, they pass the time that I am off work great too!
I would recommend it to anyone tjat has time on their hands anyway!

lakill Farm

"BBAM Had a tank from old deep water well pump, called in a favour from a mate who supplied chollar and welded it on to take a 26" immersion, closed up some ports and hey presto... plumbed in it cost about €20, lagged it well, plugged into a timer... The lagging jacket takes the scrapheap challenge look of it.."

BBAM its like i do tell my auld lad, it would be easier if you actually sorted me out a working version;), instead of me making a bol1x of it :eek: and you having to fix it anyway.

What volume of water do you heat? and to what temp? i must say im very interested,

bbam

lakill Farm wrote: »

"BBAM Had a tank from old deep water well pump, called in a favour from a mate who supplied chollar and welded it on to take a 26" immersion, closed up some ports and hey presto... plumbed in it cost about €20, lagged it well, plugged into a timer... The lagging jacket takes the scrapheap challenge look of it.."

BBAM its like i do tell my auld lad, it would be easier if you actually sorted me out a working version;), instead of me making a bol1x of it :eek: and you having to fix it anyway.

What volume of water do you heat? and to what temp? i must say im very interested,

I could feed 20 calves from it after being on for 30 minutes..

newmug

How much space would 20 calves need? And what kinda profit per head would ye be talking?

Tipp Man

Well if this thread is anything to go by calves will be mad dear in the spring

bbam

Tipp Man wrote: »

Well if this thread is anything to go by calves will be mad dear in the spring

Doubt this thread will have much to do with it... Prices have been high and I doubt there will be much let up.. However weanlin prices have gone up too so hopefully we'll get it on the back end....

whelan1

Tipp Man wrote: »

Well if this thread is anything to go by calves will be mad dear in the spring

they will be unreal, have had 4 people asking me for calves in the spring this week alone....

Tipp Man

bbam wrote: »

Doubt this thread will have much to do with it... Prices have been high and I doubt there will be much let up.. However weanlin prices have gone up too so hopefully we'll get it on the back end....

I'm certain this thread will have zero effect on the price of calves:D

however it is interesting to see the interest in rearing calves even at their high cost price (relative to a few years ago)

I have a feeling there is going to be a large shortfall of calves in the spring

Alibaba

lakill Farm wrote: »

We feed until they are eating in excess of 2kg or abut 5lb of meal a day. Normally 10 weeks old approx, but depends on weather,there condition and stuff like that. I normally reduce to one feed, and throw the feeder onto the field gate if they are out and feed them outside.

Oh its hot milk. 3 kettles to the feed is approx.

Oh and if at all possible get them outside every day. especially a nice sunny day with heat.

Just a couple of quick questions.. When do you buy usually and what breeds do you go for ?

blue5000

bbam wrote: »

berco?, no its a meo, me made it

Had a tank from old deep water well pump, called in a favour from a mate who supplied chollar and welded it on to take a 26" immersion, closed up some ports and hey presto... plumbed in it cost about €20, lagged it well, plugged into a timer... The lagging jacket takes the scrapheap challenge look of it..

We make our own hay/straw feeders too, like this only from reebar and not galvanised, about €20 does the trick... calves seem to care less about the galvanising

Hmmm methinks this reminds me of a thesco trolley with the wheels removed for moving heavy bags of meal around the yard, or better still get two for one deal:cool:

bbam

blue5000 wrote: »

Hmmm methinks this reminds me of a thesco trolley with the wheels removed for moving heavy bags of meal around the yard, or better still get two for one deal:cool:

Ya, ours are 1/4 inch rebar, quite industrial for sucks but handy to know it's strong enough for a bigger animal too...

millertime78

Thanks to all for replies on this thread,

very informative,

lakill Farm

I think the big problem ahead is "price of calves"

I m thinking of building a calf shed at the moment, will be 5k after VAT 58B.

One thing at least. All those extra cows wll have calves in the coming years following quota free 2015

lakill Farm

bbam wrote: »

berco?, no its a meo, me made it

Had a tank from old deep water well pump, called in a favour from a mate who supplied chollar and welded it on to take a 26" immersion, closed up some ports and hey presto... plumbed in it cost about €20, lagged it well, plugged into a timer... The lagging jacket takes the scrapheap challenge look of it..

Right bbam, i was taking to my 'sparky' last night about making a water heater a bit like yours.

SO he said about finding out some more details.

He half said about getting a lagged hot water cylinder, installing an immersion element with thermo, putting a tap on the bottom and closing up the other holes and then putting a plug in timer. Would it sound ok?