Bottle feeding a Calf

Loyal readers may remember Sunshine, one of the tenant cows that used our pasture during summer 2015.

Sunshine (summer 2015)

Sunshine (summer 2015)

She gave birth to a calf, named Bert, in early summer 2016. Unfortunately, Sunshine rejected the calf and wouldn’t care for it. Other cows in the herd won’t take care of an abandoned calf so the calf needs to be hand raised to survive.

We went to visit Bert at his home farm a couple of miles away. Our neighbor let us bottle feed Bert for one of his meals.

Bert getting bottle fed.

Bert getting bottle fed.

Click through for more photos and videos of Bert.

Here is a picture of Bert that better shows his size. He is about 115 pounds in the pictures. He was initially very hesitant to come out to meet us, but once he saw his prepared bottle, he rushed out to get his meal. He follows our neighbor around like a dog and sometimes wanders out of his pasture and gets onto their porch and into their house!

Bert getting his bottle.

Bert getting his bottle.

Here is a video of Bert being bottle fed. He drank the entire bottle in about a minute. He eats that amount about 6 times per day. He is pretty strong and you really need to keep 2 hands on the bottle so he doesn’t pull it out of your hands.

Bert is doing well and is growing quickly.

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