Help with a calf please!

[Connie]

This has absolutely nothing to do with reefing, but it is still one of my critters and it's breaking my heart.......Is there anyone here with experience in raising cattle? We raise Red Angus cattle. A new baby bull was born last night. It's mother's teats are too swollen for it to feed. We have been keeping an eye on it..it's been so hot, he got dehydrated and was laying out with his eyes rolled back. We made some formula and got 1 pint down him. We got a bucket of water and poured it on him and have been keeping cool wet towels on him. We moved him to our basement and put a fan on him. We went to the feed store and got some colostrum, and got about a pint of that down him. He is able to sit and hold his head up now and has started making quiet little moos. Is there anything else we can do to help this little fella that we haven't done yet? We are going to try to feed him again in 1 1/2 hours. I can't stand this.

 

[ritter6788]

Check with a feed store for an electrolyte supplement to add to water. It's been a long time since I've dealt with dehydrated calves I'm out of touch with what is available.

I know if you pinch the loose skin and it tents for more than a few seconds its in bad shape.

I'm not much help but I wish you luck and hope you can get it back to good health.

 

[Reef Pets]

As Ritter stated you will want to calf the calf electrolytes, they will help your calf recover from dehydration. You will want to get Electrosol for your calf as soon as possible. Most farm stores offer it such as Tractor Supply along with most feed stores.

 

[Connie]

Thank you so much! It's too late to get any tonight, but maybe we can get him to hang in there until in the morning and I'll go get some.

 

[Reef Pets]

Great. Being that the calf is so young it would be best to bottle feed it every 6 hours. Feed it until it rejects the bottle, that way you know it's full and it can start recovering.

 

[Connie]

We are going to take shifts. BTW I called Tractor Supply and they don't carry it here. We have a co-op so I'm hoping they will have it.

 

[Squishie89]

Do you have a vet that you work with? Can they offer you any assistance?

 

[TrialandError]

Different animals but I would imagine the same applies.

My mom and I just rescued some baby oppossums and they were sevearly dehydrated so we tried to feed them. After we took them to a wildlife refuge I told them we fed them and asked if we were to come across babies again what the best thing would be for us to do for them.

They said get pedialite cause it has electroites in it. Since the babies were dehydrated it wasn't best for them to be fed yet as it takes water to digest the food. Makes sense as they potty and if they don't have the fluids in their bodies it makes them more dehydrated.


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[sherita]

I've got way more experience with cattle than I ever wanted.

You need to get the hydration level up on the calf asap. Subq or iv fluids would be best, next best is water with elecrolytes in it. Sub unflavored pedialyte if you can't get electrolytes in your area. Once he is hydrated, you will see a quick and vast improvement if there is one to be seen. Has he attempted to stand for you yet? If not, be sure to roll him from one side to the other every three to four hours, also, move his legs through the range of motion to prevent stocking up. Feed him every three to four hours, but get him hydrated first. Has he urinated at all? What about his skin turgor? Pull up a tent of skin on the side of the neck, time how long it takes to return to being flat. More than a couple of seconds indicates that he is still severely dehydrated.

He needs to be rehydrated, and he needs to stand. These two things will do more to ensure his survival than anything else you can do for him. In the mean time, if you have a crush, get the cow into it and hobble her so she can't kick. Milk her down and feed that to the calf. You may even be able to get her to take him back if he will stand and nurse. But the likelihood is that she is going to reject him, and you will have to raise him by hand. Not an easy chore, but it can be done. And, as much as I hate to say this part of it........prepare yourself to lose him. Dummy calves can be incredibly difficult to deal with. Every day that he doesn't stand makes the hope for recover that much less likely. You have my best wishes. I hope you can get him on his feet and nursing.

 

[skinz78]

I've been in this situation many times. My parents have a 160 acre farm and we raise both red and black Angus. Keep giving the calf the colostorum. What you'll have to do next is going to require a lot of work from you. The cow is in just as much trouble as the calf even though she may look fine ATM. Cows that don't get milked or have a calf that isn't feeding can catch what is called milk fever, no joke. What you need to do is ether isolate the cow in a head stanchion or if you don't have one of those you'll need to ether get a lariat or make something similar from a rope. Place the cow in a small pen so you can work with her and keep her there, we usually keep it around 15'x15' and make sure there is something SOLID you can wrap the rope/ lasso around to hold her tight and still I/E a tree or a stout fence post. Once you have all this done, you need to restrain the cow with the rope or lariat and get her snugged up as closely to the post or tree as possible. Even if she is tame she's gonna hate you while doing this.... So be extremely careful. Once restrained, you need to milk her to relieve some of the pressure in her teats, it will have to be done a couple of times a day until the swelling go's down or till the calf starts to eat on it's own. Keep the calf right there in the same pen with her, and encourage the calf to eat while the cow is restrained. If the calf doesn't or isn't able to get up and eat on it's own keep feeding it every few hours using the cows milk that you've milked out.

Now here is the hard part, when trying to milk the cow she's gonna try and kick you in a forward motion. When she does this you need to kick her back in the belly and show her who's boss. Sounds brutal but you have to do it or she'll continue to do it and you will get caught and get hurt eventually. You're kicks to her belly will barely phase her but if she get's you you'll know it for days... Been there done that... Just be really careful... And who know's she may be extremely grateful for what you are trying to do and just stand there and be a sweetheart.

If things get worse or don't get better by this time tomorrow I would get a vet out there and see what they can do.

 

[TrialandError]

Would a warm compress on the moms teets help at all with the swelling and help milk start flowing? I know it works for women why not animals.


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[Connie]

Thanks guys for all your help. Late last night we did get some unflavored pedialyte. He was standing and walking around seemingly better. He was still dehydrated though from the skin test. When he got up and started moving around, he started passing bloody mucus rectally. We checked him real good but couldn't find evidence of being stepped on, but I still think that is what happened prior to dehydration. We had to put him down at 5 this morning because he had bled out so much there was no way he could make it. It breaks my heart. He was beautiful and 90lbs.

We had a cow give birth to twins one time and she was rejecting one. We fed it for a couple of days but didn't want the daunting task of nursing it all the time, so a little trick that worked for us was we put all three of them in a pen and put powdered milk all over both calves and the mothers face . She couldn't tell which calf was which and she accepted both of them.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[sherita]

I'm so sorry to hear he didn't make it :(

Keep an eye on mama cow, to make sure she doesn't get mastitis.

 

[Connie]

will do

 

[Connie]

A pleasant update: This is very rare, but the mama cow that lost her baby is letting the other three babies nurse! She avoided mastitis on her own. It would have been very hard to milk an Angus!