Post by sunburst4 on May 20, 2019 22:21:52 GMT -5
I've raised lots of bottle calves. I've had dumb bull calves that were not good nursers for a few days. I got one that was a 94 pound calf born to a yearling heifers that was a hard pull. He was a noodle for a couple days. I tuned him every meal. Then his head swelling went down and he was fine. So a week ago Saturday I took a steer to the salebarn and came home with a bottle calf and some cash. She is a 4 week old very tall brahman cross heifer. Wild. But she is food motivated so she learned right away that we brought the milk. If we go in the pen with her and are slow moving, she will come and drink her bottle and let us put her. She will fo fine. The next morning a guy a few miles away called. He had a calf to sell me. We went to see it. He said it was a bull born on Wednesday so 4 days old. The momma was a big beautiful red Angus 13 year old cow. Like 1500 pounds. But her udder was scary. The size of a beach ball. I felt bad for her. Last year her front teats got mastitis. The left was the size of my arm and the right had turned black and had fallen off according to the farmer. She raised a nice calf last year so he thought she could this year too. The back teats were bottles and too swollen for a calf to nurse. He said he thought the calf had been nursing but now he could see it couldn't. He felt bad he had let it go so long. He had tried to feed it a bottle but he said he didn't have the time. We bought the calf and came home. She (yes it is a heifer not a bull) was dehydrated. She still weighed 85 pounds. Beautiful big black heifer by a brangus bull. Now the bad news. We tried everything to get nutrition in this girl. We sat for 30 minutes at a time holding a bottle with the nipple hole cut bigger in her mouth rubbing her to get her to swallow. At least once a day we tuned her a bottle of milk. We put milk in a bucket. I tried to get her to nurse my Jersey who was very cooperative. She just had no suckle response. Saturday she was acting dull so I gave her a shot of banamine, nuflor, and b complex. I hoped to stay ahead of sickness, give her a boost, and stimulate some appetite. No change Saturday. Sunday morning same dullness. Sunday night my daughter was trying to get her to drink the bottle. After about 10 minutes, it was like a switch was turned on and she started sucking. Drank the whole bottle. Monday drank both bottles and looks pretty bright. I think she is finally going to be alright. Her poop and pee have been good all along. Has anyone else had one go 11 days before they had any suck reflex? I will be really watching her as I know she got no colostrum. She wants to eat grass. I let her have a little but I want her to get this milk. She has eaten some calf grain. She is eating a little fresh rye grass hay. Because of our horrid weather she and my other young calves are in pens in the barn so they cant get wet. When the sun is out we let them into the backyard to run, play, and graze. Also-we are on d names this year. So the wild brahman heifer we named Danger. The black heifer we named Disaster.