On the occasional chilly morning, I get to go out and feed the bottle babies. The morning chores with the animals typically fall into Aaron’s hands while I wrangle our human beast through morning routines in the house. Today, though, the pretty sunrise creeping through the farm was all mine.
Benning, as usual, came to join in. As did the dogs. And, once I opened the gate, the chickens.
The bottle babies are being weaned. It feels like this whole phase has gone WAY faster than it did in the Spring. Having them off the bottles before it gets too terribly cold will be kind of nice, though. No one really wants to stand outside in the freezing temps while they chug milk in the morning. Including them. They much prefer the cozy heat lamp inside the barn.
We’ve gotten pretty smooth with the bucket, bottles, milk replacer and process as a whole. Last Spring, we were mixing all of the bottles in the bucket with a concrete mixer, then pouring them over into the bottles. That honestly worked really well. This time around, we’ve been mixing everything directly in the bottles – but have also sacrificed using the kitchen counter to make life “easier.”
Man, that’s a really loose term. The trade-off is faux milky gunk that we constantly have to scrub off the countertop and sink basin. Let’s just say my fingers are crossed – so hard – that we get this kitchen reno started soon. And, that the greenhouse sink can finally get installed before next Spring. This will definitely be a no-go in the new kitchen.
Weaning means that we’re slowly decreasing the amount of milk these guys get each day while also increasing their access to grain. They have a bottomless supply of fresh hay and water as they would in the pasture. The real difference is the grain availability. As we do this, we’ll watch for changes in their behavior and how they look to make sure they’re getting the right nutrients and making the effort to feed and forage for themselves..
Naturally, this means they are crazy excited when bottle time rolls around each morning. Ha!
Soon, we’ll transition them to the pasture with the rest of the herd. We need to expand the corral area to allow enough space for this many calves and the one heifer to graze without being too competitive. The pasture cows have grain access as well – but all prefer to graze, for sure!