Milk replacer questions?

farmers101

Hi I rear a batch of caves every year, and hoping to be doing the same again this year starting in a few weeks time, when there's a good selection of caves and hopefully at better value.

I am wondering what is the best milk replacer available to buy?
Taking into account the;
cost/calf?
Performance/calf? (From day1-weaning)
Duration of feeding milk replacer to make sure, the calf is fully weaned?
Etc...

Calves will be Angus, Hereford & Friesian.

Or any more help, thanks for you help!!

Feckthis

I use gain easy mix and can't fault it. It's nearly €45 a bag but I feel the calves full and happy after a feed and have a nice shiny coat. Used volac milk replacer before this and found calfs were prone to scour. Have never used maverick before so maybe someone else can advise on this.

sh1tstirrer

Feckthis wrote: »

I use gain easy mix and can't fault it. It's nearly €45 a bag but I feel the calves full and happy after a feed and have a nice shiny coat. Used volac milk replacer before this and found calfs were prone to scour. Have never used maverick before so maybe someone else can advise on this.

I've never heard of easy mix is it skim based? Maverick is whey based much the same as volac I've tried both over many years and the calves scour on both and fail to thrive. I used shine skim based over the last few years and calves thrive on it. Skim based takes longer for the calves to digest so it doesn't upset their stomachs whey based runs through them.

_Brian

Make sure when your pricing it out price it by feed or litre made.
Maverick does something like 55 feeds while some of the other bags will do 80 feeds for similar money.
Super Cream from FreshAcres is a good feed, cheaper than Maverick and does 80 feeds. We used it for a few years and found it excellent.