The Care of Bottle Calves on the Ranch

hi I'm Mike and we all know how important Calves are to the ranch but what do you do when you have a mom who can't or won't take care of your calf today we take a look at bottle calves and these high maintenance members of the herd on our wyoming life hi there and thanks for coming along with me today on our wyoming life giving you a chance to explore the ranch life and escape the ordinary whether you're a rancher or farmer yourself or just interested in agriculture as a whole I do thank you for coming here and take a look and seeing how ranchers out here in Wyoming or at least how I deal with our animals which we actually consider our friends today we're going to be taking a look at these bottle calves this is peanut right here the brown one peanut her mom or his mom actually was our mastitis Cal from last year we decided to keep her around and give her another shot this year we actually gave her a bunch of antibiotics before she went into labor just trying to get that mastitis under control it didn't work and we ended up having to take her calf from her once again if she stays on the ranch she won't be allowed to keep a calf from here on out and we will have to have her calf brought in to us every single year and that calf will become a bottle cap behind me here this is Goliath Goliath is shy and he was our breech calf from just what week or so ago ten days ago something like that and his mom ended up not taking him back he also had some problems with standing up due to being cramped in the uterus so it took a while for his tendons to kind of loosen up so that he could actually get up and walk obviously now you can tell that he doesn't have a whole lot of problem I'm the walking front so we are going to you today we're going to talk about how we deal with these guys how we care for them and also what you did some of the things you can do with problem calves that you may have but first as you can see these guys are a little bit hungry so we're gonna head back into the shop and we're gonna get them a quick bite D so let's go do that first as we head out to the shop these guys will actually come with me as we make bottles there's basically when you think about it there's a few things that cow definitely requires and cows are herd animals so the first thing they want is accompaniment shift they want somebody to be with them luckily we had both of these guys became bottle calves on the very same day hey guys I'm trying hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey there's recording and progress here anyway these guys actually became bottle cows on the very same day which actually worked out really well so that their we didn't have a lone bottle cap which is always kind of a recipe for disaster as you can tell these guys kind of know the routine okay so the first thing is that a calf needs to have a partner in crime basically don't stand on my foot if a calf once a calf has a partner in crime then the main thing that you really need to worry about with them is obviously water whoa you slipped and fell it's a little slippery right there is no water food and of course any type of medical requirements that they may have so first thing we're going to do is get these guys what we call well it's milk replacer it's a it's a it's used as a replacement for moms milk and we're gonna mix those up for these guys and then one of the other things that they need that I kind of forgot about was space they need space to move you can't have a bottle calf any type of calf that's just pent up like I don't think that's that's healthy I don't think that's gonna work for you so what what we do is every day these guys since we don't have a dog anymore to chase them around we every day these guys actually come into our yard they're our surrogate puppies and they'll come into our yard they'll hang out in the yard we can go out and feed them out there with the kids can go out and play with them get them up and moving because exercise and movement is just as important as anything else so first of all we're gonna make these guys their bottles and then we are going to take them over to the yard and get them fed so calves just by nature I think the nature of them not being with their moms and stuff like that will are they're susceptible to more problems than I think early hey hey that's the camera don't wander the camera all right so bottle calves I think just by nature a little bit more susceptible to problems as they grow up we end up having more problems with bottle calves issues with Mal nourishment with scours which is basically just diarrhea and and overall just kind of like I think loneliness more than anything so what we always try to do is make sure that we work with our bottle calves as much as possible we're trying to make sure that they get enough eat I'm going to tell you how to make sure they're getting enough to eat and and basically just try to make them as happy as possible if they need medications we get it to them so we're gonna take a look at a few of those things first I'm gonna get these bottles going I have some lukewarm water here which is always a good place to start I like using a blender just because it goes a lot faster Hey excuse me we're gonna grab some milk replacer which is basically just powdered milk that's all it is is powdered milk and grab some of that we're gonna put it in the blender and watch these guys jump when I turn it on or maybe not not today each of these cat each calf will get two of these bottles at least twice per day and then usually I'll give them like one bottle at lunch quit standing on my foot your little feet hurt man you got hooves all right so I'll usually give them two bottles for breakfast one bottle for lunch and then two bottles before bedtime when they're younger we do for that first couple of days we'll end up giving them a nighttime feeding as well but a lot of times they don't eat well during it so I like to and this may sound a little bad but I like to make sure that they're hungry so when they when they want it when it's time for breakfast or it's time for lunch or whatever I want to make sure that they're hungry because they're gonna eat a lot better that way and they don't waste as much of your time all right so we're almost done mixing up the bottles here and then we're gonna annoy them a little bit more because before we take them over the yard I want to show you a few things okay so these are their bottles they are what two pints each I think are four pints apiece and they'll get two of these we'll come back and we'll make a couple more maybe we'll be able to get the kids out after school too to help us out so they know what this is obviously they've learned over their last couple weeks of going through this whole thing what we have going on they're gonna be really annoyed with me here because we're going to talk about a couple really quick things and the first thing and I hope that you don't whoops they say that filming with kids or animals is always the hardest thing to do so a couple things really quick when you have bottle caps that we have to worry about is under feeding them which is really easy to do because they don't want to eat sometimes so I get questions occasionally where people ask me about having a calf that's got a bloated belly that's usually a sign of actually malnourished so if you've got a calf that's got an expanded belly looks like they're really gassy they just need to eat more and sometimes you can't get them to eat they won't eat because whether they don't feel good or whatever so a lot sometimes you do have to force them to eat and you've seen me use one of these before but this is a this is what they call an esophageal feeder and what this does it fill this portion up with the milk replacer or whatever you happen to be giving them whether it's electrolytes or even some colostrum you can put right into here this is the portion that's going to go into the calf's stomach now this thing is actually made to be the right length for a calf and one of the easiest ways to tell if I get one of these calves to hold still for us as I can show you exactly how far this thing goes in come here Goliath let's be a let's be a model for this good because you're gonna be able to put this into their mouths and you want it to be extend just past the back see if we turning around the back right here of his shoulder so when this goes into his mouth it's gonna go just past there so for him this thing needs to go all the way in and you need to otherwise you're not getting it in for nothing you could actually be pushing it pushing liquid into his lungs so this ball here that's on this this is a Suffolk seal feeder it actually makes sure that you do not go down into the into the trachea you're going into the esophagus so that the milk goes into the stomach rather than end of the lungs but if you don't get it in far enough it can back back out and go back into the lungs so this thing you want to make sure that you get it in all the way and the big trick here and I'm not going to do this because obviously he doesn't need this but I want to be able to show you guys cuz I get a lot of questions about this and how to do this is I will get on the back of the calf like this you're gonna guide this tube down the left-hand side of the throat and it'll go it'll slide right in there just perfectly just make them swallow it then you just hold it up put a bit of blub blub and it goes right into their tummy so that is the esophageal feeder if you've got a calf that won't eat that's the way that you do it that's the way that you make it happen so obviously these guys we don't really have that problem but we did in the beginning he lieth here actually I think he had probably four or five feedings with the esophageal feeder so that's why he's pretty comfortable with it and he he knows it's not there to hurt him alright the other things that we have to deal with that you know once you you obviously you got to make a meat but you also have to deal with why they're not eating and a lot of that times that could be an upset stomach a number of different things and you can you can use whether they're scours tablets sometimes you're gonna see a cap that has diarrhea you can use scours tablets now these are actually an antibiotic you can use these if they if they're not working you can go to what we call la 200 which is liquid myosin and whereas the scours tablets are actually I think they're terra myosin yeah these are tara myosin this is liqui myosin just different antibiotics you can pump them up with the recommended dosage and hopefully be able to take care of whatever's giving them scours another option that we have this year I know you guys are getting hungry I know you guys are getting hungry okay another option that we have this year and this was actually brought to my attention it's called results and it's a calf neo paste it's a feed supplement for calves and it's actually it doesn't have an anti anti biotics in it it's actually made out of egg protein and this will actually help with scours as well now you do have to give it within about 12 hours of earth and this will actually help them boost their immune system and hopefully you don't have any issues with scours to start with so those are the big issues that you're gonna have with your calves you know food water is pretty simple leave water out for them they will come and drink water you may not think that they would but they will the making sure that they have enough food to eat every single day that you're given them enough bottles obviously and then being able to take care of their health as well and that's also that's not only physical health that's mental health but it makes sure that you're able to talk to your vet and if you do have a bottle calf that any questions you know don't don't take my word for it call your vet and make sure that you you build that relationship there so that you can call them and even with the silliest of questions because I call my vet all the time and I'm sure they hate hearing from me but I don't want to give anybody the wrong information either mental health I think that's one of the biggest things that people do forget about with cows calves and cows in general cows are curious animals they are herd animals so they want to be around other cows and they are are you gonna make it you know make it over there are you stuck there like a bull in a china shop really all right so yeah these calves obviously we want them to be as healthy as possible whether it's mental health or physical health or anything else so we are going to take them to our yard right now where they will get their breakfast and yeah you want to come have breakfast and then we will we'll have some fun it's it's it's very important that you know they do get a chance to have some fun be calves and be cows really if you've ever been around cows you know how curious they are and I think the cows are just as curious if not more than then their moms are so we're gonna grab this we're gonna grab our camera we're gonna say come on calves let's go come on get in here there we go all righty it's time to go make another bottle and this time we'll get the kids out here and put them to work a little bit stay you guys stay you guys stay well I'll be right back I'll be right back okay okay all right while I make up a second bottle here for each one of those guys a couple other things after about six to eight weeks we can actually start weaning the calves off already moms in the field won't be doing it that early but we can get started on it we won't wean them off you know obviously in one day but we will start cutting back the amount of bottles and we'll start giving them supplementary food including like calf starter or some sort of like calf manna or something like that that's a very small granule type of feed that they can start to digest cabs themselves will put on anywhere from about two to two-and-a-half pounds per days what they is what the usual consensus is I'm not sure if bottle caps aren't gonna put on is what that much they're gonna actually be a little bit smaller than their brothers and sisters and whatnot out there in the field but obviously without us intervening in their lives there's a hair on there they wouldn't be here at all so even if they are just a little bit lighter when it comes to time to sell them you know that's just something we're gonna have to deal with obviously when we get there you can you know if you find farmers and ranchers you can usually buy bottle caps I can tell you this much a little bit more water I can tell you this much that raising a bottle calf with the milk replacer medications time and effort that you have to put into a it's not worth it it's it's one of those things that you either have to like to do or love to do or you're better off just to skip it you can find people that will sell you a bottle calf and it's because a lot of times we ranchers and farmers they don't have the time to deal with it they don't have the time to you know make sure that that this calf has everything it needs especially when it doesn't have a mom around so you're gonna find a lot of day old cams sometimes at at cattle auctions this time of year around here those can those can go for maybe a couple hundred dollars maybe a hundred dollars just kind of depends on the calf the younger it is usually the less it's going to go for because you don't know if that calf got colostrum or how well it's doing physically or anything else so you're gonna run into you situations where you can buy cams so my suggestion would be if you're buying a bottle calf by a week old calf at least you know week ten days something like that so you know that it's it's at least made it that long that it that hopefully it's healthy enough to continue on for you whatever you're gonna do with it whether you're gonna make it a part of your herd you're gonna raise a steer for meat whatever you're gonna do bottle calves are a great way to do it and if you're into 4h or our FFA or anything like that you guys already know the routine but you will have those calves as part of your life for quite a while I don't know if somebody smeared to the screen there or not alright so anyway I'm gonna take these two bottles back over we're gonna feed the calves I'm gonna grab the kids see if we can get them out we'll leave you with that but I do ask that you do subscribe that you hit the bell notification so that you do get notified when we have new videos come out we are continuing with our vlog type videos but trying to mix them up a little bit give you guys a little bit more education mixed in with the vlog be able to of course bringing new people into the fold and and introduce new people to explore in the ranch life escaping the ordinary and what it's like to be a part of our Wyoming life thanks guys have a great week we'll see on Sunday by the way on the beyond the ranch channel for our weekly live stream and then we'll be back again on Tuesdays so head on over the website our Wyoming life comm and check it out and be a part of the herd appreciate it oh I almost forgot the bottles McKenzie grace children giggling half away spilling milk and frosted flakes on the floor every day's the same routine washing faces brushing teeth and out the door how I've come to look at say in my turn Oh you ask me what I've changed I'd see how fast I'm saying Saturdays they play non-stop with the neighbor kids on our fly laughter dog for Drive kids the young Express in my life change each morning turn to page to say Oh the I change I'd seen a fast day before we too PTA no sound it's just an ordinary day another lake in my life's change each morning turns page 24 more it's just Oh you'd ask me what I'd change I'd see how fast me I'm playing before a Jew so plan every day children giggling half-awake spilling milk in the frosted flakes

Channel: Our Wyoming Life

Views: 100,538

Keywords: Ranch, cow, cows, horses, cowboy, gardening, farmers market, Wyoming, our Wyoming life, animals, animal videos, peacock, farming, planting, cattle, ranching, bottle calf, bottle calves, make money, ranch life, milk replacer, how to, wyoming ranch, the ranch, bottle calf care, bottle calf feeding, bottle calf scours

Id: 9z5IKP4QCjc

Length: 25min 19sec (1519 seconds)

Published: Fri May 08 2020