Sucking motivation is likely strong due to survival of young animals being dependent on the process. Deprivation of sucking would likely result in frustration and a negative welfare state. The ingestion of milk, and the lactose concentration in milk, stimulates non-nutritive sucking. Sucking stimulates sucking, and deprivation of sucking may also interfere with satiety and digestive processes. In this study, sucking and butting an artificial feeding system during nutritive sucking was studied in relation to milk flow. Butting was stimulated, and sucking for a meal was lengthened, when milk flow was slowed or stopped. If a second teat became available, calves were more apt to switch teats due to slowing or stopping milk flow. These results are similar to observations recorded when the calf and cow are together. Meal duration is influenced by milk availability and hunger, not milk intake. Butting increases when the dam’s udder has less milk, most likely due to slower milk flow. A good indicator of milk intake, when the calf is suckling the dam, is butting rather than sucking duration. To reduce the occurrence of cross-sucking following a milk meal, the authors recommend a combination of slower milk flow, feeding hay, and the provision of a non-nutritive artificial teat.