Cheap diy calf feeders

Mf310

Any ideas or pictures i see some lads hace used 5 gallon drum with 4 teats on them was looking for more of a group feeder .. if i cut a blue barrell in half and put teats along it alot of milk might be wasted? I also seen someone else using wavin pipe with teats any ideas welcome 80 calves to feed so will need about 7 10 teat feeders and 2 4 teats

GrasstoMilk

Mf310 wrote: »

Any ideas or pictures i see some lads hace used 5 gallon drum with 4 teats on them was looking for more of a group feeder .. if i cut a blue barrell in half and put teats along it alot of milk might be wasted? I also seen someone else using wavin pipe with teats any ideas welcome 80 calves to feed so will need about 7 10 teat feeders and 2 4 teats

You don't need 7 feeders.
Having a feeder for every pen is the worst possible thing you can do for calf rearing!!


2 feeders and feed 2 pens at a time.
Preferably segmented as you can see the slow drinkers and move them off to a younger group.

You cannot rush calf rearing.
Glanbia have offers on drinkers ATM. I think a segmented jfc is 120€. Worth every penny

K.G.

Could you not move the feeders instead as they drink.for eighty calves maybe 3 tens.you shouldnt leave them with them anyway after feeding.

Mf310

GrasstoMilk wrote:

You don't need 7 feeders. Having a feeder for every pen is the worst possible thing you can do for calf rearing!!

K.G. wrote:

Could you not move the feeders instead as they drink.for eighty calves maybe 3 tens.you shouldnt leave them with them anyway after feeding.

Ideal hadnt even thought of that

Mooooo

Prefer the Milk bar ones myself as the jfc ones the way they are moulded seem to get milk into awkward spots to clean. Also if getting the segmented ones id get the ones with 5 or 6 as the bigger ones are heavy to be throwing on to gates. I use segmented ones till about 3 weeks and then use either 10 or 12 teat open ones. Have access to meal and water from day one. Got the jfc meal feeders with flaps tgat hang on the gate and hold a bag of meal super job, going investing in one for each pen here

Brown Podzol

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

You don't need 7 feeders.
Having a feeder for every pen is the worst possible thing you can do for calf rearing!!


2 feeders and feed 2 pens at a time.
Preferably segmented as you can see the slow drinkers and move them off to a younger group.

You cannot rush calf rearing.
Glanbia have offers on drinkers ATM. I think a segmented jfc is 120€. Worth every penny

You'll see them for sale secondhand as more invest in computerised feeding.

cute geoge

I have a couple of them jfc feeders but the white hook for holding the feeder on gate has broken .Is there any where these white plastic hooks can be bought????

Timmaay

cute geoge wrote: »

I have a couple of them jfc feeders but the white hook for holding the feeder on gate has broken .Is there any where these white plastic hooks can be bought????

Get your local engineering workshop to make you up a new one out of stainless steel.

Timmaay

Brown Podzol wrote: »

You'll see them for sale secondhand as more invest in computerised feeding.

Still not at all convinced by auto feeders, best part of 10k, against 220e for the 2 10teat non compartment feeders, who do the 120 calves here every year. Batch calves right from the start and feed them plenty of wholemilk works very well here.

visatorro

Mooooo wrote: »

Prefer the Milk bar ones myself as the jfc ones the way they are moulded seem to get milk into awkward spots to clean. Also if getting the segmented ones id get the ones with 5 or 6 as the bigger ones are heavy to be throwing on to gates. I use segmented ones till about 3 weeks and then use either 10 or 12 teat open ones. Have access to meal and water from day one. Got the jfc meal feeders with flaps tgat hang on the gate and hold a bag of meal super job, going investing in one for each pen here

I don't like the jfc teats either. Have them all replaced with peach ones

patsy_mccabe

Timmaay wrote: »

Still not at all convinced by auto feeders, best part of 10k, against 220e for the 2 10teat non compartment feeders, who do the 120 calves here every year. Batch calves right from the start and feed them plenty of wholemilk works very well here.

Not to derail the thread but, how much whole milk would you feed and for how long?
Is it possible to mix whole milk with replacer? Years decades since we fed calves here. :rolleyes:

Mooooo

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Not to derail the thread but, how much whole milk would you feed and for how long?
Is it possible to mix whole milk with replacer? Years decades since we fed calves here. :rolleyes:

Feed about 6 litres a day here of whole milk. Would be eating about a kg of ration at 8 weeks roughly, wean at 10 to 12 then depend8ng on group. Will switch to milk replacer this year all going well. Not sure about mixing, you'd prob want to be taking the Milk from the bulk tank and not different individual cows to keep it someway consistent. Lad that buys calves off me did it the spring quotas went as he got the Milk for free said he wouldn't do it again as had a lot of nutrional scours with it, and he would be good at it, regularly did 16 month bull beef with them

Timmaay

Mooooo wrote: »

Feed about 6 litres a day here of whole milk. Would be eating about a kg of ration at 8 weeks roughly, wean at 10 to 12 then depend8ng on group. Will switch to milk replacer this year all going well. Not sure about mixing, you'd prob want to be taking the Milk from the bulk tank and not different individual cows to keep it someway consistent. Lad that buys calves off me did it the spring quotas went as he got the Milk for free said he wouldn't do it again as had a lot of nutrional scours with it, and he would be good at it, regularly did 16 month bull beef with them

Would average 7 litres here at a guess, I certainly don't hold back with the fr heifers 1st few weeks.

And just a word of warning about these jfc feeders in Glanbia, them small black teats aren't worth a sh1t to any calf more than 2wks old, I think agridirect were selling the same jfc feeders with much better peach teats for a simple price. And 44e for 10 of them teats, 120e is far from a bargain if you gotta spend that replacing the teats after a few weeks.

Buford T. Justice XIX

cute geoge wrote: »

I have a couple of them jfc feeders but the white hook for holding the feeder on gate has broken .Is there any where these white plastic hooks can be bought????

Iirc, the local creamery have them or, failing that, Flahertys hardware definitely have them.

Just be careful with Flahertys, you'll go in for the hooks and end up leaving with the hooks, 2 gates, a ration feeder and two new tires on the car:D

einn32

Timmaay wrote: »

Still not at all convinced by auto feeders, best part of 10k, against 220e for the 2 10teat non compartment feeders, who do the 120 calves here every year. Batch calves right from the start and feed them plenty of wholemilk works very well here.

I seen auto feeders gathering dust in a shed once and the calves being fed with normal feeders!

Wildsurfer

Timmaay wrote: »

Still not at all convinced by auto feeders, best part of 10k, against 220e for the 2 10teat non compartment feeders, who do the 120 calves here every year. Batch calves right from the start and feed them plenty of wholemilk works very well here.

Ah now Tim you can't dismiss Auto feeders just because they are not necessary on your farm. If you are calving away 100 or so cows and good facilities, or even more cows with maybe a parent to lend a hand with calves then of course you could work very efficiently with batch feeders. Start calving bigger numbers and labour on farm only Mon-Fri, and on your own for weekend, that's when you'll appreciate the auto feeder. I would have had weekends when I wouldn't get near the calf shed till 10am, nice to have the majority of calves fed and content and not have a shed full of hungry bawling calves to add to the stress levels!

Mooooo

Know some with them in that are very happy with them and others not so much. Touch wood calving and rearing will go well for all either way. Just on last part of previous post, used to be annoyed at the roaring calves may do for milk but by god after a bad blast of crypto two years ago when you'd be walking into a deathly silence I'm now delighted to hear em looking for grub in the morning!

Wildsurfer

cute geoge wrote: »

I have a couple of them jfc feeders but the white hook for holding the feeder on gate has broken .Is there any where these white plastic hooks can be bought????

Ring JFC I'm sure they would send you out a few?

Dakota Dan

Timmaay wrote: »

Would average 7 litres here at a guess, I certainly don't hold back with the fr heifers 1st few weeks.

And just a word of warning about these jfc feeders in Glanbia, them small black teats aren't worth a sh1t to any calf more than 2wks old, I think agridirect were selling the same jfc feeders with much better peach teats for a simple price. And 44e for 10 of them teats, 120e is far from a bargain if you gotta spend that replacing the teats after a few weeks.

I always use those black teats without problems, last years calves were 8 weeks and still drinking from them.

Timmaay

Dakota Dan wrote: »

I always use those black teats without problems, last years calves were 8 weeks and still drinking from them.

Calves here use to wreck them in no time here, milk flowing out of half the spouts, so some calves would get wayyy more milk, or worse again with only a small few calves the milk would be flowing away while trying to feed them. That's my experience of them anyways.

Keepgrowing

Did a lot of work here this year and last to help streamline calf feeding. 2 sheds converted and one new one constructed.

We went to the UK to look at specialised calf rearers setups. They are highly automated and can feed large numbers very efficiently.

The auto feeder is central to the system. We went a slightly different route here. We were going to build a large bespoke rearing unit but having seen some fantastic setups we decided to use more smaller sheds as a disease precaution. We almost went full auto feeding but stopped short as the system while labour efficient and not overly expensive but the system didn't suit our system.

The shortcoming in my view was the fact that ideally calves need to be weaned and kept in a shed post weaning for min 4 weeks so as not to check their performance. We are believers in OAD calf feeding and getting calves to paddocks ASAP. This in our view helps both labour and health.

Our system is
4 litres af colostrum tubed on sight
1 week of adlib transition whole milk
1 week of transition milk replacer adlib
3 weeks hi quality MR ad lib
Then lower spec MP OAD till weaning
Drop solids in milk to abrupt weaning

Beef calves adlib milk from old style Liscarrol feeders till sale about 3 weeks

We only use gate feeders to train calves.

Heifer calves move out side on OAD MP at 2-3 weeks depending on weather.

Mooooo

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Did a lot of work here this year and last to help streamline calf feeding. 2 sheds converted and one new one constructed.

We went to the UK to look at specialised calf rearers setups. They are highly automated and can feed large numbers very efficiently.

The auto feeder is central to the system. We went a slightly different route here. We were going to build a large bespoke rearing unit but having seen some fantastic setups we decided to use more smaller sheds as a disease precaution. We almost went full auto feeding but stopped short as the system while labour efficient and not overly expensive but the system didn't suit our system.

The shortcoming in my view was the fact that ideally calves need to be weaned and kept in a shed post weaning for min 4 weeks so as not to check their performance. We are believers in OAD calf feeding and getting calves to paddocks ASAP. This in our view helps both labour and health.

Our system is
4 litres af colostrum tubed on sight
1 week of adlib transition whole milk
1 week of transition milk replacer adlib
3 weeks hi quality MR ad lib
Then lower spec MP OAD till weaning
Drop solids in milk to abrupt weaning

Beef calves adlib milk from old style Liscarrol feeders till sale about 3 weeks

We only use gate feeders to train calves.

Heifer calves move out side on OAD MP at 2-3 weeks depending on weather.

What's the high quality milk replacer? Have you it in a tank with an agitator?

GrasstoMilk

visatorro wrote: »

I don't like the jfc teats either. Have them all replaced with peach ones

I like there feeders but the teats are ****e!
I've 3 compartment feeders here from them. One has the colostrum milk bar teats for training and the other 2 have milk bar. Moved away from peach teats, calves hadn't got the suckling urge gone off them on the feeder because the milk flowed too fast and were sucking each other
We've got a jfc milk cart here with a dispenser, great job for filling them with milk.

visatorro

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Did a lot of work here this year and last to help streamline calf feeding. 2 sheds converted and one new one constructed.

We went to the UK to look at specialised calf rearers setups. They are highly automated and can feed large numbers very efficiently.

The auto feeder is central to the system. We went a slightly different route here. We were going to build a large bespoke rearing unit but having seen some fantastic setups we decided to use more smaller sheds as a disease precaution. We almost went full auto feeding but stopped short as the system while labour efficient and not overly expensive but the system didn't suit our system.

The shortcoming in my view was the fact that ideally calves need to be weaned and kept in a shed post weaning for min 4 weeks so as not to check their performance. We are believers in OAD calf feeding and getting calves to paddocks ASAP. This in our view helps both labour and health.

Our system is
4 litres af colostrum tubed on sight
1 week of adlib transition whole milk
1 week of transition milk replacer adlib
3 weeks hi quality MR ad lib
Then lower spec MP OAD till weaning
Drop solids in milk to abrupt weaning

Beef calves adlib milk from old style Liscarrol feeders till sale about 3 weeks

We only use gate feeders to train calves.

Heifer calves move out side on OAD MP at 2-3 weeks depending on weather.

Never realised you had to keep stock in after weaning with auto feeder

Keepgrowing

visatorro wrote: »

Never realised you had to keep stock in after weaning with auto feeder

You don't but to maintain performance it's best practice to keep in for some weeks

Mooooo

If meal was left adlib for a few weeks when they go out would it do I wonder?

Dakota Dan

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Did a lot of work here this year and last to help streamline calf feeding. 2 sheds converted and one new one constructed.

We went to the UK to look at specialised calf rearers setups. They are highly automated and can feed large numbers very efficiently.

The auto feeder is central to the system. We went a slightly different route here. We were going to build a large bespoke rearing unit but having seen some fantastic setups we decided to use more smaller sheds as a disease precaution. We almost went full auto feeding but stopped short as the system while labour efficient and not overly expensive but the system didn't suit our system.

The shortcoming in my view was the fact that ideally calves need to be weaned and kept in a shed post weaning for min 4 weeks so as not to check their performance. We are believers in OAD calf feeding and getting calves to paddocks ASAP. This in our view helps both labour and health.

Our system is
4 litres af colostrum tubed on sight
1 week of adlib transition whole milk
1 week of transition milk replacer adlib
3 weeks hi quality MR ad lib
Then lower spec MP OAD till weaning
Drop solids in milk to abrupt weaning

Beef calves adlib milk from old style Liscarrol feeders till sale about 3 weeks

We only use gate feeders to train calves.

Heifer calves move out side on OAD MP at 2-3 weeks depending on weather.

4 litres of colostrum tubed? Surely that's in two feeds as 4 litres in one feed tubed would make a calf sick.

Mooooo

Dakota Dan wrote: »

4 litres of colostrum tubed? Surely that's in two feeds as 4 litres in one feed tubed would make a calf sick.

Have 4.5L bottles here so far all 5 calves have drank 4L in the one go

Damo810

Bought a 10 teat JFC compartment feeder yesterday for €155. Blue tits on it look like milk bar ones but they're ****e, calfs cant seem to suck out of two of the compartments and tits feel loose in the holes. New teats going into tomorrow 😩

Keepgrowing

Dakota Dan wrote: »

4 litres of colostrum tubed? Surely that's in two feeds as 4 litres in one feed tubed would make a calf sick.

Never had that problem. May not feed again for 12 hrs though, till she wakes up

Dakota Dan

Mooooo wrote: »

Have 4.5L bottles here so far all 5 calves have drank 4L in the one go

Yeah but there's a difference between tubing and drinking.

Dakota Dan

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Never had that problem. May not feed again for 12 hrs though, till she wakes up

Is there any fear that the excess milk would overflow into the wrong stomach and go sour? I tube all calves soon after birth with 3 litres max, I gave one calf last year 3.5 and he was thrown down for a day after.

kevthegaff

If a calf gets 4 litres, they should be ok for 24 hours.
This is my routine
Milk cow by hand 3-4 litres, feed with bucket and tit with a big opening roughly takes a minute.
Calves on 5 litres+ depending on size until 10 days old.
Depending once a group of 8-10 calves strong drinkers and if single pens are tight (have 10 double pens) are grouped at 4 days+.
Calves go to once a day normally at 2 weeks with calf starter meal.
Calves weaned at 10-12 weeks and on a nut afterwards once outside (found nut to be better against coccidiosis with birds)
All whole milk but considering milk powder this year
Find first 60-70 calves get no scour but then I move them into a feed passage in cubicle house as viruses spread
Feed all calves myself

raypallas

cute geoge wrote:

I have a couple of them jfc feeders but the white hook for holding the feeder on gate has broken .Is there any where these white plastic hooks can be bought????

Jigsaw and a bit of ply or stockboard and use a non broken hook as a template, probably need a longer bolt your away with a very cheap fix.

kevthegaff

Does anyone know who sells those jigsaw feeders or train track feeders?

Track9

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Iirc, the local creamery have them or, failing that, Flahertys hardware definitely have them.

Just be careful with Flahertys, you'll go in for the hooks and end up leaving with the hooks, 2 gates, a ration feeder and two new tires on the car:D

==========================
Buford caheered me up with the comments about the upsell by the stores , incl the set of tires