The Bottle Baby's Growin'

At the beginning of September we had a cow have twins. She claimed one calf and didn't want anything to do with the other. Which happens sometimes, and even when she claims them both, a lot of times she just doesn't physically have the milk to support both calves. So I became a momma to one of the twins.

The first picture I took of him on the second day he was alive only shows his wee wittle head. Nothing in the picture to indicate his true size (maybe 75 lbs max - probably more like 60 lbs). He had a cute black mark on his head shaped like a heart.

















We've been feeding him a bottle of warm milk replacer twice a day now for almost 8 weeks. He has started eating protein pellets consistently (maybe a couple lbs per day in 2 different eatings) and likes alfalfa eventhough he hasn't had much of anything in the way of grass or traditional feed so far.

Here is a picture at about 4 weeks:

And now he has grown considerably. It's hard to say what he weighs now. A LOT more than the 60 lbs he started at! He's had a bad habit of ramming his head into my backside if I take the bottle away from him when its empty. I'm much better off to let him continue to try and suck air out of it while I'm making sure he has pellets and fresh water. We will be trying to wean him off the milk and onto grass and pellets here in the next few weeks. We'll see how that goes...then maybe my bruises can have a break when he stops looking to me for his dinner (how many times do I have to tell you I don't have an udder)!