Orphaned calves need love too

One of the things I like best about bottle calves is that they are friendly when they are little and more friendly than most cattle when they get bigger. A calf raised on it’s mom has to be taught that people are good. A bottle calf learns early that people bring good things, like food.

Since before our official founding in 2021, LAAN Limousin Ranch has raised a handful of orphaned calves. Each of these babies came to us because their mothers either wouldn’t or couldn’t care for them.

Our first calf came to us when we found a newborn bull calf in the pasture all by himself during the fall 2019 calving season. We spent the day trying to identify his mother and then locked him up with who we thought she was. The next morning we found two calves, the orphan and a newborn. Though not typical, when a dam (mother cow) rejects her calf it leaves the rancher no choice but to intervein.

The next fall calving season a little heifer calf was being cared for by her momma. As we watched them, we noticed the heifer was skin and bones and getting weaker each day. A quick examination and we discovered the dam was not producing milk. Without another cow to adopt her, the little heifer came home and became our second bottle calf.

During the 2021 fall calving season, we lost a cow to a prolapse that could not be cured, orphaning her daughter. Again, we didn’t have another cow to adopt her, and so this little heifer became our third bottle calf.

This fall calving season we had two calves orphaned, one the smaller of a set of twins and the other’s mother died. This year we convinced two cows who recently lost their calves to adopt them – the best option for all.

One of those orphaned babies got to know us pretty well thanks to a couple bottles of colostrum. Even though we didn’t bring her home, she is just as friendly as the other bottle babies we raised and transferred back to the herd. Having a friendly cow in the herd is an asset because she will help move even the most reluctant cows from pasture to pasture or pasture to lot.

Raising calves is always an adventure, but raising bottle calves is a whole different story. To learn more about what we did to raise our three bottle calves, read this post.