From Our Farm: Calf Chores

When a calf is born, we usually separate it from the mother shortly afterward. Because we do not allow the calf to nurse on the mother, we need to bottle feed our calves twice a day for 8+ weeks. We feed them a gallon of whole milk per day and introduce hay as early as possible. We also free-choice (leave out for them to eat when they want to) whole oats at least a week prior to weaning. Kelp and sometimes minerals are given with the oats.


This is a calf bottle. It holds 2 quarts of milk. That's a pretty big bottle.


This is a mob feeder. We can feed 2-5 calves with this feeder. After being bottle-fed for a while, we usually train our calves to drink out of this. They still get the same amount of milk but we will begin free-choicing water when the calves are using these.

At a minimum age of 8 weeks (and able to eat a fair amount of hay and grain), our calves start weaning. We give them 2 quarts of milk once a day for two weeks and then stop giving milk altogether. Once weaned, we keep the calves for another month or so just to make sure they are eating hay and grain well before sending them over to our custom calf raiser.