Post by jenantill on Feb 6, 2024 22:36:19 GMT -5
Hi there,
our Jersey cow had a calf 4 1/2 days ago and the calf has progressively been eating less and less. The calf was born weak and took about 24-hours to stand and a bit longer to walk. She is now walking well but does not seem to have a lot of energy and sleeps a lot throughout the day. (This is our first calf by the way and so we have no experience!) Our dam is producing A LOT of milk and we were able to give the calf a good amount of colostrum in the first couple of days but we took the calf up to the house with us because it is February and we live at 7500 feet elevation in Northern New Mexico and we did not feel the calf was strong enough to make it through the nights down in our barn. We also administered IV fluids (subcutaneously) to the calf the first night we had her which seemed to help and also brought her temperature up. Her temperature has now been between 100 and 102 for the last 4 days. The calf is pooping and peeing but again, sleeps a lot. She seems to have a strong appetite around 10am and then again around 10pm but could go the whole rest of the day without eating. She is eating about a quart to a quart and a half of milk total in those two feedings. From what we are reading, the calves should be eating around 6 quarts a day? She is no where near that. We are very concerned that she is not getting enough nutrition into her system. We have taken her down to be with her mom on a couple of days and she is curious to suckle but shortly will give up and lay down for the rest of the day. Even when we hold the teat for her, she pulls her head off and does not want to go back on. Her mom will stand very still in order for the calf to nurse but she does not seem super interested. We have been feeding the calf out of a large syringe while placing our finger in her mouth so that she has learned to suck. When she is interested in eating, she will eat a lot but if we wake her up to feed, she will not eat and if she is not in the mood, there is no amount of coercing her to get her to eat. Any thoughts and suggestions would be most welcome!
**Other relevant information**
Our dam came to us in November from Oklahoma (a much lower elevation) and went through the stress of being in a new climate and without other cows through the last couple months of her pregnancy. We also had a vet tell us she was not pregnant so we milked our dam all the way up until she gave birth and her birth was a surprise to us.
our Jersey cow had a calf 4 1/2 days ago and the calf has progressively been eating less and less. The calf was born weak and took about 24-hours to stand and a bit longer to walk. She is now walking well but does not seem to have a lot of energy and sleeps a lot throughout the day. (This is our first calf by the way and so we have no experience!) Our dam is producing A LOT of milk and we were able to give the calf a good amount of colostrum in the first couple of days but we took the calf up to the house with us because it is February and we live at 7500 feet elevation in Northern New Mexico and we did not feel the calf was strong enough to make it through the nights down in our barn. We also administered IV fluids (subcutaneously) to the calf the first night we had her which seemed to help and also brought her temperature up. Her temperature has now been between 100 and 102 for the last 4 days. The calf is pooping and peeing but again, sleeps a lot. She seems to have a strong appetite around 10am and then again around 10pm but could go the whole rest of the day without eating. She is eating about a quart to a quart and a half of milk total in those two feedings. From what we are reading, the calves should be eating around 6 quarts a day? She is no where near that. We are very concerned that she is not getting enough nutrition into her system. We have taken her down to be with her mom on a couple of days and she is curious to suckle but shortly will give up and lay down for the rest of the day. Even when we hold the teat for her, she pulls her head off and does not want to go back on. Her mom will stand very still in order for the calf to nurse but she does not seem super interested. We have been feeding the calf out of a large syringe while placing our finger in her mouth so that she has learned to suck. When she is interested in eating, she will eat a lot but if we wake her up to feed, she will not eat and if she is not in the mood, there is no amount of coercing her to get her to eat. Any thoughts and suggestions would be most welcome!
**Other relevant information**
Our dam came to us in November from Oklahoma (a much lower elevation) and went through the stress of being in a new climate and without other cows through the last couple months of her pregnancy. We also had a vet tell us she was not pregnant so we milked our dam all the way up until she gave birth and her birth was a surprise to us.