Raising bottle dairy steers is not for the faint of heart. As purchasable animals, they rival only goldfish in price and ability to keel over. I’ve seen healthy day-old Jersey calves sell for less than five dollars at the sale barn. I’ve never seen a day-old Jersey bring more than fifty dollars, which is top of the market and still a reasonable value, considering some goldfish can sell for hundreds of dollars per piece. I guess koi is good eating, probably best fried with hushpuppies.
Dairy breeds, however, produce a bony carcass, so most of the bigtime cattlemen don’t want anything to do with a Holstein steer, and they wouldn’t be caught dead with a puny Jersey steer on their farm. “There is more meat on a big deer,” they might say. These days cattlemen just want big beefy angus cows. This may seem rather discriminatory, but it works out in favor of some dairy steers. Many are destined for hobby farms where they live a life of leisure and get a lot of entertainment out of watching people play veterinarian. I think it’s a well-known fact among dairy steers that the way to achieve pet status on a hobby farm is to get as close to death as possible without dying and then let the farmer nurse them back to health.
We’ve raised a lot of bottle calves over the years. The ones we remember the most are the ones we nearly lost and somehow doctored back to the living. Oftentimes, they’re a little stunted afterwards, which works to their advantage cause they last longer on the farm. My philosophy with raising dairy steers is most of the work is upfront, so even if it takes longer to feed them out, it’s still worth it to recoup the time spent bottle-feeding and doctoring. We grow our own grain and run it through the old hammermill, so we don’t really have a shortage of feed.
Eventually, whenever we take the calves to the sale barn, the handlers always comment on how tame the steers are. “They’re just big pets,” I respond.
Then I walk the catwalk one last time. Though the paycheck is nice, I still hate to see them go.
So interesting to hear how it is different owning cows and looking at them as pets! I really enjoy your writing style.
Thanks!
that is a lot of work and you must have a miraculous hand to keep them thriving. currently, i have one bottle calf because it is a twin and the momma abandoned it. however, she did get first colostrum, so she is thriving. For me, it’s just a pain. but she is twin to a heifer, so maybe she’ll grow into a productive cow.
We feel like if we only lose one in ten then we’re doing good. Colostrum is key, so hopefully it will grow to be a productive cow. The dairy farmer we get our bull calves from is pretty good about making sure they get colostrum in those first 24 hrs, which makes a big difference.