By Janis Schole, Contributing Editor
Keith Marshall can feed a lot of calves with a minimum of effort using his big portable nursing station.
The Unionville, Virginia, dairy farmer designed and built the industrial strength rig. He was assisted by Sammy Altman & Son.
Marshall raises 150 calves per year. The big feeder allows him to keep the calves out on pasture.
"Other large-scale nursing stations use barrels to hold the milk, but none of them lets you make certain every calf has an equal chance to drink," he says. "This feeder keeps the milk away from the calves until I see that they're all in position. This is important because they're very competitive. It's sort of a mob situation."
Marshall's feeder holds 80 gallons of milk inside a 20-ft. section of 10-in. dia. pvc pipe. It'll feed 45 calves at a time.
The pipe hangs inside a trailer frame fitted with two large wheels. He tows it behind an ATV.
The open ends of the pipe are sealed by 10-in. expansion plugs that Marshall got from a marine supplier in Florida. He fills it through a T-spout at the front end.
The pipe rotates 180 degrees so the nipples can be held at the top of the pipe until calves are in position to nurse.Marshall installed the long row of nipples by boring in brass tees, each of which accommodates two nipples.
In all, the rig has 67 nipples spaced 7 1/2-in. apart (32 tees with three extra nipples aligned vertically).
Marshall sorts the calves into different paddocks, according to size and age. Each group of about 45 calves is fed separately.
"The calves are kept on a different farm from where we milk cows, so we transport the milk in 55-gal. drums and use a sump pump to load it into the nursing station," Marshall explains. "We park in a reasonably flat spot and then use a sight glass to level it, using a jack on the station. That way, all the nipples feed out an equal amount of milk."
As the calves start sucking, they create a vacuum. The rig includes a ball valve where Marshall can manually let air into the pipe. Once he's sure every calf has found a nipple, he uses the valve to release the vacuum and let the milk flow.
"We pour a few gallons of water into the pipe as the calves are finishing the milk, and they will drink as much of this as it takes to make them completely full. This ensures that the calves won't suck on each other when we take the nursing station out of the paddock," Marshall explains.
"Because of the equal opportunity they have to drink, all the calves seem to do real well," he explains. "The investment was worth it. In only 45 min., one man can feed 90 calves and clean the nursing station."
He cleans it out with a chimney cleaning brush and five gallons of soapy water.