Services

They are then fed milk with either a bottle or pail. It can take a lot of patience to get calves to drink that first day since they are just babies and everything is new to them. Most of the calves weigh about 85 pounds on average when they arrive.We use a custom milk replacer that we have developed with the help of our nutritionist and feed companies over the years. The milk replacer helps to ensure consistent quality, sanitation, and nutrients to each calf, which can be difficult when using milk "straight from the cow." It is mixed with warm water in 100 gallon tanks and transported to calves in huts by small vehicles, such as golf carts. Each tank load of milk will feed about 200 calves. Every day at BBA we use about 1500 gallons of hot water. This water is heated using Geo-thermal technology utilizing energy from the ground. This is better for the environment as well as being cost-effective!

At BBA, we have approximately 1,300 huts to house calves in until they are 60 days old. Each row is filled as calves arrive. Calves have a bed pack of dry sawdust in the summer and a combination of sawdust and straw in the winter. Huts are washed and moved to a clean location after each calf has weaned into the barn. The huts may look small from a distance, but we add an outside area using hog panel wires to each hut so the calves have plenty of space until they are old enough to move into the barns. The individual huts help us to keep each animal clean, prevent illness from spreading, and closely monitor the food intake of the individual calf. We've discovered that this is a very important part in our ability to detect illness or digestive problems in a calf early on, which reduces our need to treat those illnesses and helps the long-term health of each calf. Just like people, animals get sick from time to time even if we do everything right, so our protocol is designed to keep calves healthy and help them recover quickly if they do get sick. Busse's Barron Acres can boast that our death-loss average is well below the national average, and a large part of that is because of how we take care of the babies when they are really young.

Calves are moved at 60 days of age to a calf barn. Calf comfort is critical at this time to reduce illness.Calves are fed a dry shell corn mixed with a protein pellet. This ration has all the nutrition calves need at this stage to grow and stay healthy. The barn is specifically designed for the young animals, and can easily be cleaned and has a ventilation system to maintain air quality. It also has adjustable curtains that can be lowered on nice days to allow maximum air movement, and raised on cold days to keep the temperature comfortable. Calves are fed a dry shell corn mixed with a protein pellet. This ration has all the nutrition calves need at this stage to grow and stay healthy. A common myth is that calves cannot digest corn, but as long as the corn is dried and the tough shell is cracked, the calves can get a lot of nutrients from this type of feed. Believe us, if calves couldn't use it, we wouldn't feed it! Corn is way to expensive to feed and not get any results! Over time, this ration is switched to a haylage mix made from alfalfa that we grow right on the farm. We have four large barns to house the animals until they are approximately 150 days old.

At 150 days of age, the babies are ready to go on to their next stage. They typically weigh somewhere between 375 to 400 pounds when they leave the farm. These big babies have done a lot of growing in 150 days! Depending on which farm the calves came from, they will either go on to a secondary grower (who will raise her until she is ready to be bred and have her own calf) or back to the farm itself to finish growing up.

Busse's employs about 20 full and part-time employees, with many family members playing an important part of our team. If you would be interested in being a part of our team, check out the Employment page.

One of our priorities at Busse's Barron Acres is education, and we believe that honesty is the best policy. If you are interested in using our services check out the costumer information page linked at the bottom. We frequently give tours to local educational groups, occasionally host open house events for our neighbors, and have even been visited by international groups curious about how we do things. If you have a question that is not answered somewhere on this website or if you are interested in a tour for your group, we encourage you to send us a message using our Contact Us page. Please don't arrive at the farm without asking for permission first. It's not that we don't like visitors, but we need to be careful for bio-security reasons and for your own safety around the animals.