Raising Orphans Calves. Orphan calves crop up during any calving season for several reasons. A first-calf heifer might not take to her newfound maternal instincts very well, an older cow might have twins for the first time and only take a liking to one, or the hormones just might not kick in right. Some years you may not have a single incident, and others you might have a whole slew of them at once.
Because orphans open up a cause for additional labor and the risk for production loss, you certainly want to have multiple options available – and some extra tricks up the sleeve to give these disadvantaged calves their very best shot at life.
Initial choices
Obviously, the best-case scenario would be to not have an orphan at all. This makes grafting or getting the dam to accept her calf appealing
options. Before you undertake either one of these, the first step is to access the situation.
If you find a wet newborn with no dam in sight prioritize colostrum. Colostrum offers immunity benefits if caregivers feed it to an animal before it is 24 hours old.
After that mark the gut closes and the body can no longer absorb the immunoglobulins. Monitor the newborn extremely carefully for the next few hours if the dam is in question.
You must hand-feed colostrum if someone does not claim it.
You should never be without colostrum. Many people prefer straight-from-the-cow milk over powdered replacers with immunoglobulins available on the market.
Take advantage of the opportunity to milk one of your own cows after a stillbirth and freeze her colostrum exclusively for emergency orphans.
Your herd’s colostrum has been exposed to the typical pathogens in your specific environment making it especially advantageous.
You can purchase frozen colostrum from a nearby dairy as the next best option. Many dairies test their colostrum with a brix refractometer to ensure they purchase high-quality products. Consult your vet for recommendations on powdered replacements.
After you take care of colostrum you can consider the next set of options. An inexperienced mother can orphan the calf.
Hobbles may help until the calf learns to nurse from the cow.
This will require the additional labor to corral the cow and keeping her somewhere in close proximity for frequent check-ins. If you have a cow with a dead calf who could nurse a new one, there are a few ways to attempt a graft, including laying the dead calfskin over the live calf or trying a commercial scented product to encourage adoption. Depending on the layout and management of your ranch, it may very well not be worth the trouble of grafting and easier to just hand raise
calves, especially if you have the facilities for doing so.
Bottle or bucket.
As with colostrum, you want to be sure you have all the emergency supplies on hand necessary to care for calves. At the very least, you want
bottles, nipples, milk replacer, products for good sanitization and safe well-bedded housing.
Milk replacer truly reflects the principle of “you get what you pay for” and requires you to make the best investment possible. You may be able to get frozen milk if you have a local dairy nearby. In a perfect world this option would be the go-to choice but it may not be realistic if you lack a place to store the supply. Many ranches can find many high-quality powdered milk replacers available. Research supports their effectiveness if they handle mix and feed them correctly.
While the price might give you some kind of idea about the quality of replacer you are purchasing, nutritional composition and the ingredients are where you can identify the true value. To ensure you are feeding a product that meets the unique needs of your operation (this can vary according to breed), it is best to consult your veterinarian and/or nutritionist for recommendations. You can also speak with colleagues who have found successful products if their operations are similar to your own.
Milk Replacer.
The Bovine Alliance on Management & Nutrition has a good guideline on milk replacer types and qualities for the uninitiated available online. It outlines the main protein sources you commonly see in milk replacer ingredients, medications, and other indicators for quality making it a good starting place to get familiar with what you’re looking at.
The next question is how you are going to feed milk. Calf feedings can be done two or three times a day at different portions, depending on labor availability and how hard you’re pushing for rate of gain. Perhaps more polarizing than how much or how often you feed milk is the mode of delivery. The debate for nipple versus bucket raising has gone on about as long as we’ve been raising calves.
Bucket raising has a lot of labor advantages for feeding and cleaning. Many dairies and ranches have much success using buckets over bottles. Calves can be trained to drink from a bucket fairly early on in life, but it is recommended the first few feedings be on the bottle to reduce risk of milk going into abomasum and ensure the calf is suckling properly.
If you are feeding multiple calves, calf bars are another option. But if you are going through this route. It is best to do one that allows you to place individual bottles instead of in a tank with nipples.
When calves group feed from a communal source they create winners and losers. You cannot know how much each calf consumes until it is too late.
Sick or dead calves result from this uncertainty.
Thoroughly clean and sanitize bulk calf bars after every single feeding which requires more labor than it appears at first glance.
Other considerations
A big piece of the calf raising puzzle is figuring out the weaning process. One of the advantages you have when feeding calves by hand is you have total control of weaning time and method. You can wean as early as 10 to 12 weeks when hand raising. If you have been feeding a starting grain and preparing for a smooth transition. Offering free-choice grain while feeding milk begins early rumen development, significantly faster than forages alone do. This is because grain digestion begins the production of the three volatile fatty acids in the rumen which cause this organ to mature. But like milk, calf starter needs to be of a high quality.
You want your calves to consume sufficient grain before you introduce them to forages to do this successfully. You also need to incorporate coccidiosis prevention. Coccidia thrives in confined environments typical to calf raising. Farmers need to feed a grain treated with a coccidiostat. They can also administer the medication orally. Once we wean calves and they consume grain and forage they will be ready to utilize pasture at an earlier age.
Farmers often raise orphaned calves. This situation is unfortunate but it does not mean these animals are doomed. When managed correctly they could outperform even their dam-raised counterparts. No one has set a guaranteed method that works for every management style. Many options exist for any ranch to succeed with orphans.
Raising Orphans Calves
American Cattlemen 2021