How do you mix milk for suck calves?

lostgoat

Hi all,

As the title suggests, how do YOU mix milk powder/replacer for suck calves/dairy beef calves. I don't mean the proportions of milk to water, etc. I'm looking for ways to simplify the process.
We have 30 suck calves this year, mixing milk in buckets and hauling to the shed. It's a fair few trips in the day, and does take quite a bit of time. Planning to get a larger number of calves next year, but want to be more efficient at it.
Was thinking about rigging up a 45 gallon barrel or something to bulk mix the milk, and then rather than weighing each bucket individually, you only weigh the powder once. This should (in theory), reduce any error in weighing which would be associated with weighing out milk for each bucket.

Would really appreciate any images or descriptions you have come up with yourselves to streamline the process.

Thanks in advance!

Lostgoat

_Brian

We would mark the required water level on the buckets amd the scoop with permanent marker.
Filial the water to the level and then whatever number of scoops, mix with drill and skim coat mixer attachment.

We use 20l food grade buckets, but only enough for 8 calves in each, no more than 8 calves to a 10 teat feeder. So for your 30 sucks it would be 4 buckets. You’d have them filled and mixed in 10 minutes easy.

When I was using a shed farther away from the mixing dairy I had a cheap sack barrow with rings that I could sit 2 buckets quickly into and wheel it easily.

Donald Trump

If the calf investment scheme is still going (I think they were going to extend it from last year) you can get a grant for a milk cart with mixer.

Or if you either had the numbers. or you were a gentleman hobby farmer with money to burn - they also give the grant for automated computerised systems.

Mooooo

Get a mixer on wheels such as the jfc one. If you're not pushing it up slopes they're the job. Can get them with pump as well if you want to remove the lifting of buckets.

Kileir

I'm feeding 30 calves in 20-30 minutes. I bought an 80 Liter insulated hot water heater from Amazon delivered for Eur200 from Germany. It has a digital thermometer which is set to 40 degrees C and comes on 90 minutes before feeding time so that the water is ready when I go to feed. I use 60 Liters of water to feed the calves but you wont get 60L of hot water from a 60L heater so get a larger volume than you need. The heater is hung on the wall over where i feed the calves and plumbed to the mains water. As the hot water empties the cold water enters the heater for the next feed time. I use two 20 liter buckets and fill 10 liters of water into each bucket then add 5 jugs of milk powder - half to each bucket (the jug supplied by Volac which recommends 1/2 jug to 2 liters of water per calf). Then feed 10 calves using 10 calf feeder and repeat for each group. Been doing it this way for years and works very well. No hauling water or milk powder. No scours.

Base price

We have a wydale 110l mixer on wheels. We bought it 15 years ago and to date it never gave any problems and still works as good as the day it was bought - most years we would rear between 100 to 250 calves. I wash it out with hot water and washing up liquid after morning/evening feeds and sterilise it every 3rd day.

There are larger ones on the market and some have pumps but they are awfully expensive.

https://www.odonovaneng.ie/product/wydale-mobile-milk-trolley/

feartuath

I purchased an old 100ltr immersion and plummed a mixing valve on the outlet so temp is preset.
Filling into 20ltr buckets.
A battery drill with a mixing impeller ensures no lumps in the feed and consistant mixing.

All I need is more calves than I am rearing at the minute.

lostgoat

Hi guys,

Thanks so much for the replies. Very useful.
I'm hoping to have more calves next year, so although the buckets are okay at the moment, I'd like to have a plan to make things easier. The auld one here loves feeding the calves, but want to try eliminate any lifting of buckets for her. And want something easy to clean. So the pump (although as pointed out is expensive) may be an essential for me.

I'm no gentleman farmer! I do work off farm though. I had thought about the automatic feeders. Has anyone experience of them?

Does everyone give the calves hot (or at least warm) milk? Is it essential? I'd imagine there is a significant cost associated with any heating element which would hear that much water.

Thanks again for everything lads. Some great ideas!

Base price

lostgoat wrote: »

Hi guys,

Thanks so much for the replies. Very useful.
I'm hoping to have more calves next year, so although the buckets are okay at the moment, I'd like to have a plan to make things easier. The auld one here loves feeding the calves, but want to try eliminate any lifting of buckets for her. And want something easy to clean. So the pump (although as pointed out is expensive) may be an essential for me.

I'm no gentleman farmer! I do work off farm though. I had thought about the automatic feeders. Has anyone experience of them?

Does everyone give the calves hot (or at least warm) milk? Is it essential? I'd imagine there is a significant cost associated with any heating element which would hear that much water.

Thanks again for everything lads. Some great ideas!

We don't have automatic feeders but a few dairy farmer friends installed them over the past few years for rearing dairy heifer calves and they wouldn't be without them now. They had some initial problems with calves getting used to them and drainage issues due to excess water.
We're old school here - the range is lit sometime in Autumn and runs until late Spring. My brother put in a bigger water copper cylinder years ago and OH plumbed an outdoor hot water tap. We fill a 100 litre blue barrel with scalding hot water from the house and bring it to the yard to mix the cmr. It works for us but it is a lot more labour intensive but less economically intensive than automatic feeders.

Good loser

Best thing to do is let (drive/herd) the calves come to the milk mixing station. After a day or 2 they will trot over easily; I use a bamboo stick 5/6 feet long to guide them.

For 8/10 calves I mix 4/5 scoops powder per bucket cold in say 5 litres water with a s s whisk; then top up with hot water in those yellow buckets. For 10 calves I first put in a bucket of lukewarm water to blue feeder to settle their positioning, then follow with the 2 milk buckets.

Hang the feeder on a cut away pallet tied to a low gate.

20l canteen boiler, filled with buckets and taken out with large plastic jug about 2l.

_Brian

lostgoat wrote: »

Hi guys,

Thanks so much for the replies. Very useful.
I'm hoping to have more calves next year, so although the buckets are okay at the moment, I'd like to have a plan to make things easier. The auld one here loves feeding the calves, but want to try eliminate any lifting of buckets for her. And want something easy to clean. So the pump (although as pointed out is expensive) may be an essential for me.

I'm no gentleman farmer! I do work off farm though. I had thought about the automatic feeders. Has anyone experience of them?

Does everyone give the calves hot (or at least warm) milk? Is it essential? I'd imagine there is a significant cost associated with any heating element which would hear that much water.

Thanks again for everything lads. Some great ideas!

We heat with an immersion on a timer, don’t find it excessively expensive. We also switched to once a day feed which saves on the heating bill

trg

_Brian wrote: »

We heat with an immersion on a timer, don’t find it excessively expensive. We also switched to once a day feed which saves on the heating bill

You do the full feed once a day is it? As opposed to weaning them down to once a day?

We put up a water heater with set temperature and bought a whisk! Both game changers really. Milk is mixed in jig time and washing buckets and feeders with the hot water is done in no time.

patsy_mccabe

Farmer Phil over on Youtube has a few videos up on automatic calf feeders. He's fairly honest on his review of them. Maybe worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNrtGHqvVpo

_Brian

trg wrote: »

You do the full feed once a day is it? As opposed to weaning them down to once a day?

We put up a water heater with set temperature and bought a whisk! Both game changers really. Milk is mixed in jig time and washing buckets and feeders with the hot water is done in no time.

Not all Milk replacer are formulated for once a day feeds, slight difference in mixing rates for once a day.

trg

_Brian wrote: »

Not all Milk replacer are formulated for once a day feeds, slight difference in mixing rates for once a day.

How many litres do you give them on the OAD feed?

_Brian

trg wrote: »

How many litres do you give them on the OAD feed?

Just follow the recommendations on the bag, each brand will differ

trg

_Brian wrote: »

Just follow the recommendations on the bag, each brand will differ

Sure I know that. I asked how many YOU feed.

Never mind anyway it's the original question I asked that i was trying to get an answer to and I reckon I have it now anyway.

Base price

trg wrote: »

How many litres do you give them on the OAD feed?

When once a day feeding we look at grams of milk powder per head rather than litres. As Brian said different products have different mixing instructions. We would put calves on oad from a month old prior to that they would be on 2l twice a day starting at 125g/l cmr for calves that are 12-15 days old when bought in, rising to 3l (135g/l). At a month old they would be eating crunch/calf pencils and we switch them onto oad. We make sure that the troughs always have fresh crunch/pencils in them as they will eat a lot more when on oad feeds.
Edit to add these are mostly FR, AAx, HEx with a few coloured calves as well.

lostgoat

Base price wrote: »

We have a wydale 110l mixer on wheels. We bought it 15 years ago and to date it never gave any problems and still works as good as the day it was bought - most years we would rear between 100 to 250 calves. I wash it out with hot water and washing up liquid after morning/evening feeds and sterilise it every 3rd day.

There are larger ones on the market and some have pumps but they are awfully expensive.

https://www.odonovaneng.ie/product/wydale-mobile-milk-trolley/

I was wondering if I could ask you about your system?
How come you have such a range of calves? From 100 to 250?
Do you finish them all?

Base price

lostgoat wrote: »

I was wondering if I could ask you about your system?
How come you have such a range of calves? From 100 to 250?
Do you finish them all?

We used to do calf to beef and we would also sell grass calves and yearlings in Spring.

lostgoat

Base price wrote: »

We used to do calf to beef and we would also sell grass calves and yearlings in Spring.

Thanks for the reply.
So, if you don't do calf to beef anymore, what have you switched to if you don't mind me asking. Or why do you not calf to beef anymore?
I'm interested as I'm considering going down that route more. (Or at least as a complement to sucklers).

Base price

lostgoat wrote: »

Thanks for the reply.
So, if you don't do calf to beef anymore, what have you switched to if you don't mind me asking. Or why do you not calf to beef anymore?
I'm interested as I'm considering going down that route more. (Or at least as a complement to sucklers).

We were doing bull beef for many years but eventually woke up with continuos poor factory prices - unless you have a contract with guaranteed prices then it's a lottery. We've increased the numbers of feeding cows and although I said we wouldn't buy in calves this year we've reared just up on 80 so far. Some were doubled/tripled up on bought in milch cows (high cc) and sold on and a few farmers always buy some reared/weaned ones from us every year.
Edit - I just did a quick tot up and we reared 116 calves this year mostly HEx, LMx and AAx.

trg

Base price wrote: »

We were doing bull beef for many years but eventually woke up with continuos poor factory prices - unless you have a contract with guaranteed prices then it's a lottery. We've increased the numbers of feeding cows and although I said we wouldn't buy in calves this year we've reared just up on 80 so far. Some were doubled/tripled up on bought in milch cows (high cc) and sold on and a few farmers always buy some reared/weaned ones from us every year.
Edit - I just did a quick tot up and we reared 116 calves this year mostly HEx, LMx and AAx.

Interesting. I was thinking of maybe smallest auto feeder we could get and doing 3 batches of 40 from December to June on it.

Good loser

trg wrote: »

Interesting. I was thinking of maybe smallest auto feeder we could get and doing 3 batches of 40 from December to June on it.

It depends on how much else you have going on, but for those numbers would not bother with auto feeder. Would cost too much powder. An extra bag per calf would be €40 plus.
Definitely vaccinate for pneumonia and coccidiosis.

lostgoat

Base price wrote: »

We were doing bull beef for many years but eventually woke up with continuos poor factory prices - unless you have a contract with guaranteed prices then it's a lottery. We've increased the numbers of feeding cows and although I said we wouldn't buy in calves this year we've reared just up on 80 so far. Some were doubled/tripled up on bought in milch cows (high cc) and sold on and a few farmers always buy some reared/weaned ones from us every year.
Edit - I just did a quick tot up and we reared 116 calves this year mostly HEx, LMx and AAx.

Sorry, when you say feeding cows, you are buying and fattening cull cows is it?
How do you get on with the HEx, LMx and AAx?
I wonder about the prices given for the calves. Let's say you give 300 for a continental cross calf (some are making €400-500). But it'd surely take another 100 to wean them between milk replacer and crunch/pencils. So you are up to €400 minimum, then keep for the first year at grass till a yearling. You could buy a continental yearling (beef bred) for 7-800.... And only have to keep them the one year.

poor farmer

Base price wrote: »

We have a wydale 110l mixer on wheels. We bought it 15 years ago and to date it never gave any problems and still works as good as the day it was bought - most years we would rear between 100 to 250 calves. I wash it out with hot water and washing up liquid after morning/evening feeds and sterilise it every 3rd day.

There are larger ones on the market and some have pumps but they are awfully expensive.

https://www.odonovaneng.ie/product/wydale-mobile-milk-trolley/

rearing about 100 calves with a wydale 110litre mixer ,best thing I every bought .
Half a bag of replacer mixed up to 100 litres ,feeds 30 ish calves on twice a day.
Battery drill with a paint mixer would do for smaller numbers.

Cattlepen

Milk churn and Lidl plaster mixer. Mixed in about 10 seconds

Base price

lostgoat wrote: »

Sorry, when you say feeding cows, you are buying and fattening cull cows is it?
How do you get on with the HEx, LMx and AAx?
I wonder about the prices given for the calves. Let's say you give 300 for a continental cross calf (some are making €400-500). But it'd surely take another 100 to wean them between milk replacer and crunch/pencils. So you are up to €400 minimum, then keep for the first year at grass till a yearling. You could buy a continental yearling (beef bred) for 7-800.... And only have to keep them the one year.

The HE'x/AAx and LMx calves are either doubled or tripled onto cows or sold as weaned/grass calves to a few farmers that buy from us annually. The bull beef were mostly FR's.

lostgoat

Base price wrote: »

The HE'x/AAx and LMx calves are either doubled or tripled onto cows or sold as weaned/grass calves to a few farmers that buy from us annually. The bull beef were mostly FR's.

Oh I get you now. Apologies, you are in milk!
I guess I didn't associate someone buying dairy beef calves to be a dairy farmer! They tend to be selling!

Base price

lostgoat wrote: »

Oh I get you now. Apologies, you are in milk!
I guess I didn't associate someone buying dairy beef calves to be a dairy farmer! They tend to be selling!

No, we're not in milk, sometimes we buy in cows with high cell counts from dairy farmer friends to rear calves.

trg

Good loser wrote: »

It depends on how much else you have going on, but for those numbers would not bother with auto feeder. Would cost too much powder. An extra bag per calf would be €40 plus.
Definitely vaccinate for pneumonia and coccidiosis.

You're probably right.

Now I do have an awful lot going on outside of farm between work, family and sport and I like calves plus I'm in the bracket of having decent money from paye job and I'm not a fan of hardship that doesn't pay. That was the rationale!

Not a fan of wasting money either though so appreciate your point.

funkey_monkey

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Farmer Phil over on Youtube has a few videos up on automatic calf feeders. He's fairly honest on his review of them. Maybe worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNrtGHqvVpo

I think I heard him say on his farm tour video that each machine was €14k.
Not sure if you can get smaller versions, but I guess all the money would be tied up in the central feeder unit which would be required no matter what herd size you would have.
From his reviews of it, it does seem like a great system for those with a number of calves.
Not sure how many you'd need to be putting through it annually for it to be a feasible system though.

Base price

funkey_monkey wrote: »

I think I heard him say on his farm tour video that each machine was €14k.
Not sure if you can get smaller versions, but I guess all the money would be tied up in the central feeder unit which would be required no matter what herd size you would have.
From his reviews of it, it does seem like a great system for those with a number of calves.
Not sure how many you'd need to be putting through it annually for it to be a feasible system though.

A dairy farmer friend installed two 4 years ago. I think he said they were 11k for the two of them and I noticed this year he has another two added. He milks about 300 and rears all his heifer calves and a good few bull calves to 6/8 weeks. He had some initial teething problems especially around drainage as the auto feeders wash after every calf gets fed and the bedding wasn't lasting long. He got pig slats as a work around and they seem to have solved the problem.

funkey_monkey

Base price wrote: »

A dairy farmer friend installed two 4 years ago. I think he said they were 11k for the two of them and I noticed this year he has another two added. He milks about 300 and rears all his heifer calves and a good few bull calves to 6/8 weeks. He had some initial teething problems especially around drainage as the auto feeders wash after every calf gets fed and the bedding wasn't lasting long. He got pig slats as a work around and they seem to have solved the problem.

Maybe it was £14k for both? I just remember the figure, but at that time I thought he only had the one.

Good loser

In a large dairy herd machines suit more as there is a continuous chain of calves being added.
With calf to beef calves come in bundles and can be 3 to 6 weeks old so OAD feeding works from arrival.