Calves and Milk in a bucket

Growing up in a farming community I was used to hard work at very painful hours. Today it seems that 3AM does not even exist on my watch and it vanishes even further in winter.

On the farm in the UK were 2 dairy herds. Approximately 300 animals in 2 herds that we milked and milked and yes Milked! When you look at the hard work that goes into getting a product on the supermarket shelf you soon wonder why easier methods of production have not been invented.




The cows produced young and these provide some of my fondest memories. Rows upon rows of little black and white faces only a few days or weeks old begging to be fed, begging to have clean bedding and some just begging to be loved. They could not do any of this themselves but one could easily get them to do at least part of it.

Bucket feeding. A labour intensive task using a blend of real milk and powder heated up and poured into buckets. A calf cannot drink from a bucket naturally. It is not known immediately from birth that one must stick ones head in the bucket to be fed. 2 options are open to start this process and both can be equally hard work.

Option 1 - a teat on the bucket. It may seem simple but to get calf to suck a plastic teat is not easy. Problem! The teat is on the side and does not teach the calf to stick it's head in the bucket but merely teaches it to suck.
Option 2 - fingers in calf mouth and pull gently into the bucket of warm milk. 90% of calves hate this and kick up an absolute fuss but eventually they succeed. For the 10% that fail it's back to the teat!

Eventually the calves know instinctively to dunk their head in the bucket and they will find food and before long they are hungry for more.

The real thing that comes from this memory is determination and for this you need to find the motivation. In my early years working on the farm the motivation was to get the job done and get back into the warm and get home. As time progressed and I understood the economics of it the motivation came from the determination to produce better livestock sooner with minimal illness and it all starts with milk in a bucket and something that cannot help itself.

Some years later I would see calves that I had taught to feed themselves becoming hungry for more forming part of the grown herd producing their own young and the cycle goes on.

Life and business are exactly the same. Motivation to succeed and the determination to be motivated further are lessons we need to learn. We all need to learn to find out how to use our bucket, many of us are very much stuck on the teat but a handful have grown back into the herd and are teaching others to succeed. I do this daily with my business, teach others the basics and they soon teach others. Visit today http://www.bemotivatedtoday.com/48925