Post by wybroncos on Oct 7, 2016 10:59:30 GMT -5
I have a 4 year old cow on her second freshening. I bought her right before her second freshening. The guy who had her before had weaned her calf and grafted another calf onto her at some point so I know she is capable of accepting another calf. She freshened last November and I was not able to get her bred this spring like I had planned because I had to move back in with my mom to take care of the ranch while my sister is deployed. So... I weaned Ruby's calf last month and our neighbor has 2 angus bottle calves that he was going to let me borrow for a few months. I took Ruby over to his place so she could be bred by his bull and so he could graft the calves onto her. I thought that since he has been around cattle his whole life it would be best if he worked with Ruby and the calves. Well, I was wrong. He had only been feeding the calves a bottle once a day, I told him that Ruby would need to calves to suck at least twice a day (if she was not being cooperative) or she would drop production and could develop mastitis. He seemed to understand.
Ruby was at the neighbor's for 3 weeks when he called and said the bull had covered her and I could come get her and the calves. He had been keeping Ruby and the bull in one pen and the calves in another. He would tie Ruby in the morning and let the calves in with her to suck and then separated them again until the next morning and he said all Ruby wanted to do was kick at them. I am guessing we have multiple issues. Ruby's bag was probably full and painful and the calves were STARVING by the time he would put them together. He said he never turned them out together because Ruby didn't like the calves so she never thought that these were her babies to take care of.
So now I have a mess. I have been working with Ruby and the calves for over a week and there is no progress. The calves only think they can suck when a human is around so when I try to catch Ruby we all three end up chasing her. When I do get her caught she kicks at them. I tried hobbling her back legs (finance's suggestion, I hated it) and then she would spin circles going after them with her horns. The only way to get her to let them suck is to tie and hobble her. I took a few days off of work so I could be around to try to figure this out and would go out 5 or 6 times during the day to let the calves nurse but that didn't seem to help. I have tried Orphan-No-More and that worked once for about 5 minutes. I am pretty short on time and cannot milk her twice a day. Sometimes I have to go out of town for work and my mom is not able to milk Ruby so I kinda need a calf to do the work for me.
The angus calves are almost old enough to wean right now and I might have to go ahead and do that. My question is has Ruby been ruined from ever accepting another foster calf? Or has she just decided that she hates these calves? If there a chance if I got her a new calf (probably a holstein) that she might accept it? Or does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to make any part of this work better? I am sorry for the rather lengthy story but I figured more information would help. And I greatly appreciate any suggestions!
Ruby was at the neighbor's for 3 weeks when he called and said the bull had covered her and I could come get her and the calves. He had been keeping Ruby and the bull in one pen and the calves in another. He would tie Ruby in the morning and let the calves in with her to suck and then separated them again until the next morning and he said all Ruby wanted to do was kick at them. I am guessing we have multiple issues. Ruby's bag was probably full and painful and the calves were STARVING by the time he would put them together. He said he never turned them out together because Ruby didn't like the calves so she never thought that these were her babies to take care of.
So now I have a mess. I have been working with Ruby and the calves for over a week and there is no progress. The calves only think they can suck when a human is around so when I try to catch Ruby we all three end up chasing her. When I do get her caught she kicks at them. I tried hobbling her back legs (finance's suggestion, I hated it) and then she would spin circles going after them with her horns. The only way to get her to let them suck is to tie and hobble her. I took a few days off of work so I could be around to try to figure this out and would go out 5 or 6 times during the day to let the calves nurse but that didn't seem to help. I have tried Orphan-No-More and that worked once for about 5 minutes. I am pretty short on time and cannot milk her twice a day. Sometimes I have to go out of town for work and my mom is not able to milk Ruby so I kinda need a calf to do the work for me.
The angus calves are almost old enough to wean right now and I might have to go ahead and do that. My question is has Ruby been ruined from ever accepting another foster calf? Or has she just decided that she hates these calves? If there a chance if I got her a new calf (probably a holstein) that she might accept it? Or does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to make any part of this work better? I am sorry for the rather lengthy story but I figured more information would help. And I greatly appreciate any suggestions!