Formula, milk replacer and maternal matters

When raising a commercial herd where we can save maternal heifers, we need to buy bulls that have PPD numbers for high maternal milk, among other numbers.  After starting there, we need to also pick heifers from cows that we know were good mothers and document how the cow behaved after calving and how her udder weathered raising a calf.  

The size of her bag is not necessarily indicative of how much milk she will produce, but the size and shape of her teats is very important for the calf to latch on.  I’m confused about the arguments women are making about not breastfeeding due to the current baby formula shortage.  As someone who breastfed five kids until they were each a year old, I know a little something about this topic.  What I will say is if one of our cows has mastitis that can’t be treated, or if she is too lazy to let her calf suck, or if she actually can not produce enough milk, then she takes “the trip” to town. 

We had a cow one year that had some “age” on her and her udder was so big and stretched out that it nearly dragged on the ground.  She most certainly went to the sale barn.  We also had a sweet Holstein that when we weren’t saving her milk, she was raising four calves.  When I weaned them, she actually fed three more calves that summer and she only had a normal size udder.

Horses, goats and sheep have about the same issues raising young ones as the bovine, so the “size” doesn’t matter as much as the attitude of the critter.  Mother’s milk has always been the preferred method of raising their young over milk replacer as it has all the antibodies that the baby needs.

Have a good one!