Adventures in the Lives of Cattle Farmers: Bottle Feeding a Newborn Calf

Last weekend, my wife and I visited my parents' home in central North Carolina. It's almost always an adventure every time we visit them because we never know what sort of interesting events will occur.

My parents live about a mile from my father's parents, who live beside my dad's only brother. So together, over the years, my dad, uncle, and grandfather have managed around 65 head of Black Angus cross beef cattle. This has led to many interesting experiences over the years, but one recurring event that I've been part of is managing the situation when a calf is born and its mother either doesn't accept it or has twins and doesn't realize she's had two calves.

This occurred again about a week and a half ago, so when we visited my parents this weekend, we got to visit with the calf that my mom and aunt have been bottle feeding because they couldn't figure out which cow was its mother. Taking care of a calf can be a lot of hard work. Generally, calves which aren't raised by their mothers in the first few weeks of life are susceptible to all sorts of sicknesses, and this particular calf has suffered from several conditions already, requiring medicine and checking on him a few times each day.

I wanted to share some photos and video clips from this weekend, as we got to visit the calf during one of his feeding times and we got to see him run around.

My grandparents used to raise chickens, and one of their chicken houses is still standing. This makes a nice home for the calf since it's well-ventilated and covered. My dad stacked some round hay bales to make a small corral for the calf, and then blocked the main entrance to the house as well. This meant we could let the calf out of its corral when we arrived, and he happily ran around and enjoyed stretching his legs. Here are some clips of him running not long after we arrived:

We do think this particular calf was a twin, because he's smaller than the other calves, which were born around the same time he was. It was fun to interact with him. He's fairly friendly since he's had human interaction almost every day he's been alive. Normally new calves are extremely skittish around us. He was very curious, so I got some fun photos of him throughout the time we spent with him:

I even tried out portrait mode!

My wife particularly enjoyed interacting with him. Here's another fun clip I got:

Finally, after we played around with him for a while, it was time for his bottle. He gets very excited when it's time for food, and he gulps down the formula as fast as he can!

Normally, the bulls that are born in our pastures get sold for beef at the local stockyard. However, since this guy is being raised a little differently, it's possible he'll have a future as a show cow for the local chapter of 4H, and he may even make it to this year's North Carolina State Fair!

I'll be sure to update you on his future once he's older and gets over the various sicknesses he's suffered from. He seems to be doing well overall, though, so I hope you've enjoyed this look into the lives of cattle farmers!