Bottle Calves

How many people buy and condition baby calves? Thinking about buying a few to fill up my barn and make some extra cash. Any suggestions or tips would be great!

Cruiser said:

How many people buy and condition baby calves? Thinking about buying a few to fill up my barn and make some extra cash. Any suggestions or tips would be great!

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we have holstein bottle calves. are you talking about beef breeds or...

While a nice idea, I think you really need to put a pencil to paper to see if it will work cash wise and also evaluate if you have the time.  These calves take alot more time than one might think.    Make sure they have had colostrum, have dry navels, feed them a milk based replacer, and keep some scour meds on hand.   Check out the price for milk replacer, starter feed, and decent hay.  If you can get them bought cheap enough it might work.  Usually the cheap ones have issues such as wet navels or no cholostrum.

Last week my local sale barn market for baby calves was:

Baby Calves holstein  $75.00 to $155.00 Hd
Baby Beef Calves  $275.00 to $350.00 Hd

the feeder cattle market was
Beef Strs 400 to 645 Ibs. $123.00 to $170.00 / cwt
Beef Hfrs  380 to 485 Ibs. $130.00 to $170.00  / cwt
Hol Strs  600 to 865 Ibs.  $90.00 to $93.75 / cwt

I would much rather purchase an older calf, but then you may be selling to me.
Good luck.

Thank you for your reply..I'll take into consideration your opinion

Any other opinions?

Cruiser said:

Any other opinions?

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It works if you know what you are doing and buy them cheap enough. My good friend who was my best man in my wedding lives in Green Bay Wisconsin. He is a milk hauler and knows lots of farmers from his milk route. He does this but now with the cattle prices over the past year, he don't make as much profit. He was raising Holstein steer calves that he was buying rite from the dairy farmers for $25 a calf up to a year ago before the beef market went through the roof. Now he is buying them for $50 a bull calf from the farmers that he picks up their milk. Food for thought, what type of bottle calves are you looking to raise? If the calves are expensive off the bat for beef breeds and you buy milk replacer, you are probably not going to make as much profit as you think you will. My friend had a high mortality rate and works his butt off, some of those bum calves have no will to live. Buy colostrum and meds to have on hand for things that Glenstory said. I don't know if you live in a dairy area or not, here is a secret my friend told me he does which helps gain more profit if you live in a dairy area. Milk replacer is very expensive, so he found dairy farmers who had cows that were medicated, they can't sell that milk being on medications and most dump that milk down the drain. My friend had a couple 55 gallon drums and talked with the farmers who pumped that milk into his 55 gallon drums that my friend would pick up daily with his pick up and fed his bottle fed calves with that milk, saved him a bunch of money not buying milk replacer. Just something to think of and it is very time consuming, it is like a 2nd full time job at times my friend tells me but he makes good money at it cause he has a good relationship with these dairy farmers buying the calves and gets medicated milk for free.

I have done it for years and made good money.  I only buy beef calves and bulls if i can. you will go in the hole with dairy calves from my dealings.  the beef calves cost more but will bring a lot more inthe long run.  We use nurse cows  and buy the calves for around 100 to 200 dollars for babys.  We can buy them cheaper in the cow sale when they split the pair that are old.  We dont feed any grain just let them suck the nures cow for about 3 to 4 months and i have always atleast doubled my money..  The only thing i had probelms with was scours but if you get on it quick it is not a problem.  Buy the time these calves are ready to come off the 400 weight calves will bring over 2.00 this spring :-\

I could see how R2scott's method works depending on the part of the country you live. You will not touch a bum/bottle calf around me for under $200 usually from what I have seen they are many times in the $250 to $300 range, no matter what the breed. If you have nurse cows around that are not dried up and willing to accept orphan calves, yes that would work the best for beef calves. Cause milk replacer cuts into your profits very fast. And depending on where you live dairy calves sell well in dairy areas. Even Holstein steers sell well in Wisconsin compared to other non dairy states like where I live. Due your research in your area for what the calves will cost and then if you will need to use milk replacer if you don't have nurse cows to use.

It's a gamble.
I made some good money raising dairy calves back in the '80s - prices were reasonable, and I had little to no illness or death in the calves - was purchasing bulls & heifers off a local dairy just a mile from the farm.  Made enough money off the steers to pay for raising the heifers, then sold them as springers.
But, after a stint in grad school and two moves, we started out with some more - purchased off the farm, but multiple sources;  prices were higher than I really wanted to pay, had more scours and deaths than I'd bargained for - and when we sold the steers at 400-500#, they brought not much more, on average, than what we'd paid for them as baby calves.  Took a real beating on them. 
Don't care if I never have another bottle calf - and for sure, not another Holstein.

Number one rule when doing bottle calves....get them from the breeder and off the farm.  Do not go buy them from the sale barn.  Those are the ones that are more prone to having problems and dying just from the setting, stress and all the crap that runs through sale barns.  The only time I even considered buying out of a sale barn was a little blind calf that I felt really bad for(would have gotten a second to buddy with or have tried to put it on my freshly weaned cow.)  Yeah I know, but I am willing to put in extra effort to get one in the freezer.  Bad idea all in all to buy at the sale barn.  Those usually have a death sentence.

Thanks for all your input... I'll kept everyone posted on how it goes