Hand feeding the calf is definately more time consuming but the overall training of your cattle will be easier. In time you can also wean him to a bucket. As age and weight increases, gradually increase the amount of milk at each feeding and decrease the number of feedings a day. If he is not hungry, miss a feeding rather then trying to make him eat. Give the calf a dry pen, free from drafts. Milk should be at body temperature, and bottle kept very clean. On average, feed four to five pounds (2 to 3 quarts) of milk per day. If for some reason you end up having to bottle feed your calf, he will need to be fed 3 times a day for the first couple weeks. It has a high fat content and is high in carbohydrates, protein, and antibodies to help keep your calf healthy.) You can also purchase colostrum from a feed store.Ī calf with his mother will consume small amounts frequently. It is yellow to orange in color and thick and sticky. (Colostrum is the first milk the mother produces. It is healthiest for the calf to keep him with the mother. Legumes also provide nitrogen to the soil so no other chemical fertilizer will be necessary.įollow this and the result will be a pasture that not only contains more plants per square yard…but healthier plants which contain more nutrients. The legumes, especially red clover and alfalfa, will continue to grow lush when dry weather turns grasses brown. Let the cattle spread their organic fertilizer (manure) to feed the grasses and legumes. I’ve been told they’re often a better source of minerals than the grasses and clovers. A few weeds in a grazing regimen are not bad. Newly seeded pastures are likely to be weedy, but after one year of grazing and mowing, the clovers and grasses will be dominant. The few weeds they don’t like (thistles) can be hoed after you move the animals to the next paddock. You want the animals to eat the weeds and less desirable grass before you move them. If you don’t reseed, then undesirable weeds will emerge. A mix of 80% grasses with some sweet clover or other legume would be ideal to fill in the gaps. If you have two acres divided into four paddocks, you can place one water supply (less piping/plumbing) in the middle of the pasture where all four paddocks converge.Įvery once in awhile your pasture may need re-seeding. Since the animals will spend a week or more in each paddock, a water trough can be placed where the corners of several paddocks come together to serve them all. The more paddocks, the more often you can move your cattle to fresh pasture. As you see how your pasture grasses and clovers grow, you may want to increase or decrease the number of paddocks. By the time the cattle have grazed through the last one, the first is ready to be grazed again. I learned a couple of simple principles over the years: Divide your field into two or four paddocks and rotate your livestock as needed so as not to overgraze. I must say however, if you’re going to have Miniature Herefords, you might as well have “The Whole Miniature Farm”. (New Zealand’s kune kune pigs are friendly, compact animals with short, stumpy legs, a round, sturdy body, a short upturned snout and two tassels hanging from their lower jaws but that’s a different web page). They’re miniature pigs that forage on pasture, cute little things. He has now installed a proper, three-rail fence and he did cover it with wire because he bought some turkeys, chickens and kune kune pigs. This worked very well for him in the short term, and if you’re considering raising just one calf, this will work for you as well. Simply put, he drove some concrete stakes in the ground and used a 30-foot, light-weight chain kind of like a heavy-duty dog tether. I told you earlier about a fellow who tethered his bull calf. A single strand of electric fencing is adequate to hold a Miniature Hereford and it is, of course, easy and inexpensive to put up and move around from paddocks. Because of today’s liability, I would suggest a four foot high, three-rail fence.Ī new device that has made keeping a couple of steers more interesting to the Gentleman Farmer is the portable electric fence. Because of the size and gentleness of these cattle, you really don’t have to have elaborate fencing cattle wire and t-posts will work well.
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