It never ceases to amaze me how quickly calves learn to drink in the calfshed. These four all came in last night, wet but with full tummies after a day with their mums.
A few sucks from the bottle gets them started and then I transfer them to the feeder.
Easy.
When I was a kid, there were no fancy teats and bottles. Each and every calf we had to get to suck our fingers, then we had to put its head into a bucket of milk and try to get it to learn how to drink by sucking the milk up through our fingers.
(Then they spent the rest of their baby calf days drinking from buckets.)
If a calf didn't get it and really needed a feed we used a beer bottle with a rubber milking 'inflation' (one of the parts that milks the cow) on the end.
We LOVE these peach teats, they have little valves in them that mimic how the milk comes out of the cow.
See you tomorrow,
Raewyn
Makes raising the calves so much easier.
ReplyDeleteM
Sounds like they are perfect for the job. Amazing how things change over the years.
ReplyDelete