D- Ferdinand -- sick bull calf?

[Selden]

Hi everyone:
Well, just when I was ready to jump into my car and go get a bull calf from Sally, a farmer an hour a way called and said he had a day-old Jersey bull calf that I was welcome to for free. The farmer wasn't sure he'd make it. "Ferdinand" had been born during the night, while his mother was in her stanchion, and he lay in the wet manure gutter until morning. Nevertheless the farmer had dipped his navel and given him some colostrum. I was welcome to try.

Life has been busy -- husband away -- car troubles -- the usual. I finally picked Ferdinand up today (he was born in the middle of Sunday night, so he will be 3 days old tonight) and I was pleasantly surprised to find him standing and looking pretty lively. I brought him home in a snow/sleet storm in a dog crate. He passed some stool on the way and it was sticky orange/yellow, much like breast-fed baby poops, except more odiferous. The farmer said he was only feeding a quart morning and evening. He gave me a pail (a cleanser bucket, but he said he'd washed it) of milk to take with me.

His stall wasn't ready and the weather was awful when I got home after lunch so I set Ferdinand up in the corner of my kitchen, in an old broken oak playpen. I gave him a pint of warm milk in a bottle and he went to sleep. By afternoon I had his stall built but no gate (to keep Katika, my heifer, out). So at 5:00 pm I decided I'd keep him in the kitchen overnight and take him out tomorrow. I gave him another bottle. This time I planned to give him the quart the farmer spoke of. He drank a pint and then lost interest. By this time he was doing lots of lying around and I was starting to worry.

He has not shown any interest in finishing the last pint. He has had 2 qts. over the course of the day; I was very careful to hold the bottle low. He passed stool at around 9 PM and it was entirely liquid. I am very nervous that I've done something wrong -- could it have hurt him to come into the house?! -- and that now he has evil scours and will die.

I am off to re-read KFC like an anxious parent but if anyone has any thoughts or advice, let me know. Thanks!
Selden

[Joann]

You have not done anything wrong. The kitchen is by far the best place for Ferdie. He needs to be warm and he needs lots of petting and encouragement. Sometimes nothing can save a calf with such a poor start, but if anything can, you are doing it. Don't let him get dehydrated. It is usual to give electrolytes in these cases. Midge raises a lot of bob calves and always gives an electrolyte feed after moving them.

You may have to get medication for Ferdie tomororw. It is most always diarrhea or pneumonia that gets them. Both are treatable if caught early.

If you kitchen is only about 60F, I would suggest using an additional heat source such as a heat lamp or space heater. He needs to be really warm like in a premie ward. A little jacket helps a lot. Sally uses fleece saddle pads on calves.

[Selden]

Ferdinand seems perkier this morning and gobbled his quart of milk right down. I wimped out last night and just turned up the heat in the kitchen.

It sure is hard "farming" around here where there are no supplies! No one seems to have heard of heat lamp fixtures. Hardware stores sell the bulbs but no fixture that can handle 250 watts without being a fire danger! The Agway an hour away, that at least knew what I was talking about, was sold out. So I called around. It began to feel like an awful comedy.
"Street lamp fixture? No, we don't sell street lamp fixtures!"
"Oh, heat lamp? You want to fix it?"
I think I finally ran one down an hour and fifteen minutes away. The same place has DairyWay 20/20 milk replacer. I am going to look for electrolytes there, too, though I didn't dare go into it over the phone. I was afraid they'd think I was researching another electrical problem!

I'd like to get Ferdinand out of the kitchen before my husband returns from his business trip. My husband is very tolerant, has put up with the turkey poults, the chicks, the lambs, the puppies and kittens... but something tells me maybe the bull calf next to the breakfast table ought to be just something that happens in his absence and he hears about as a good story!

Keep fingers crossed for dear Ferdy. He is very smelly but quite sweet.
Selden

[Claire]

Selden- a good source for electrolytes, probiotics, etc. are livestock supply catalogs, many of which are online and can ship quickly.

American Livestock Supply is a good one, as is NASCO.

I think NASCO is [a href="www.enasco.com"]www.enasco.com[/a]

Claire

link verified: 3.1.11

[MooMad]

I hope you've got some pics of Ferdinand in the kitchen Seldon

As a preventer of scouring I'm a great believer of not feeding a calf milk for at least 12-18 hours after travel. Electrolytes are fantastic for settling their wee tums after the stressful events of travelling and being in a new environment.

If he continues to scour I'd take him off milk for 24 hours and feed at least 8 litres of electrolytes over that period. They don't starve being off milk for that short time and it gives their inners a chance to recover. Scouring is very hard on their wee bodies.

Once back on milk a few tablespoons of natural yogurt in their milk each feed should keep him in good health.

I make cheap cosy calf covers out of old woollen jersey's (sweaters-jumpers) I think I've posted the instructions on what parts to cut out under calf raising tips. They don't slip around or get yucky poo on them.

So, you'll be right for a bull next year, good one!

[AnnB (NE)]

I never withhold milk from a scouring calf -- a scouring calf is weak already and withholding milk will weaken him further.
However, a dehydrated calf can't form a curd and so can't properly digest milk, so getting electrolytes into him and getting him hydrated before milk feeding is most imperative.

I tend to deal mostly with calves that already have strikes against them. "Salebarn specials" that no one else wanted - most are just a little dehydrated but I've picked up some bad ones too, like the newborn black baldie bull that had been hit in the head with a steel gate, or the newborn Angus freemartin that was maggot infested, neither of which had had colostrum.
I've only lost 2 calves -- one aspirated milk into his lungs and was butchered before he could sicken and die, the other didn't have colostrum and fell sick and died overnight when moved in with other calves at 9 weeks of age (vet later told me if I'd waited another month, the calf would probably have been okay -- so now if they didn't get colostrum, they are kept in isolation until they are over 3 months old and their immune system is functioning on it's own)

At the first sign of scours, I give electrolytes and start the calf on Neomycin (Biosol), followed shortly afterwards by a probiotic. Neomycin is a safe antibiotic that does not leave the digestive tract (does not treat respiratory or systemic disease). Neomycin basically goes through and sterilizes the gut, killing ALL bacteria, both "good" and "bad". Giving a probiotic 30 minutes later, repopulates the gut with "good" bacteria that aid digestion.
Treatment is continued until 24 hours after the calf shows normal droppings.

I'm a firm believer in probiotics. I give probiotics at birth (when new ones first come home) and anytime the feed is changed -- "bad" bacteria have a much harder time taking hold in a animal that's been "seeded" with "good" bacteria.

This newborn stage is also the only time I feed a medicated feed -- I do use a medicated Calf Starter as the first grain. The medication is for Coccidiosis. Since our property was a dairy for over 50 years, Coccidiosis was a problem with calves until I switched to the medicated feed. Each calf gets one 50# bag of medicated, then moves over to the non-medicated.

Ann B

[Selden]

Thanks to everyone for all your great suggestions. The weather has been horrible here -- heavy snow and sleet -- which has meant that getting various things from various stores all over an hour away has been problematic. However, Ferdinand is looking better!

The biggest change came after I gave him his first bottle of electrolytes. Wow-ee! He stood up an hour later!

I finally took him to the barn yesterday afternoon, after building a solid 5x7' stall in the corner of Katika's big box, making a calf coat, and rigging up a heat lamp. I have some pictures but I'd have to send them to someone else to post -- I can't do it from this machine.

By the way, Ferdy had still been in the kitchen when my husband finally got home, exhausted, from his business trip at 2 in the morning. The electrolytes had plumped Ferdy up and he had peed all over the place. Unfortunately I had turned the lights down low so my husband's first knowledge of this came after shedding his outdoor shoes at the doorway and stepping into a warm puddle of urine! When I got up at 5 AM I found the puddle on the linoleum, and in the middle of it, my husband's drenched black dress socks. (He accepted my apologies and my exclamation, "He's peeing! What progress!" My husband knows me well and is amazingly tolerant!)

Here's some questions.

1) How much milk should Ferdinand be eating by now, considering he is 5 days old and is still scouring (but not quite as badly as before)? I have been giving him a quart AM and PM, which is what the farmer recommended, and one to two quarts of electrolytes in between, in several feedings. His stool is looking a little thicker, but it's still yellow diarrhea. Nevertheless, he's obviously feeling better -- trying a bit to gambol and play (he falls down).

2) I have Terramycin tablets for calf scours but wasn't able to get Neomycin. Should I use any antibiotic at this point? Should I order Neomycin from Livestock Supply, even though it won't get here until Monday?

3) My 17-year-old son was able to get me one tube of "probios" EQUINE ONE ORAL GEL of probiotics. It is labeled for foals, not calves. Will it work?

Thanks again to all!!!
Selden

[Joann]

If I were feeding a normal healthy calf, I would be giving it four feeds a day, each about one quart of milk. Depending on weather and my attitude, by a week old if the calf is a normal bouncy calf, I would give it three feeds, each about 1 .5 quarts. By two weeks it would be getting 2 quarts per feed. I would continue feeding at this level until was eating plenty of hay or grass, Calf Manna (or similar feed). Then I would cut the mid day feed. By one month it would be drinking from a teat bucket, not a bottle, and getting at leasat 3 quarts per feed (2xDay).

Calf feeding methods are not chipped in stone. Some would consider that this was over-feeding, but if ad lib with the cow they drink more than this, I do assure you. But you do have to increase carefully and watch its stool.

With Ferdie I would take his temperature. If normal, and fluid loss to diarrhea is diminishing, I would merge in milk and merge out eletrolytes, which have no nutrient value. They just help prevent (highly dangerous) dehydration. If his diarrhea smells nasty, the tetracycline is indicated. I think it was Ann who made the excellent suggetion to follow the dose in one half hour with your probiotic. I see no reason the probiotic for a foal won't work fine.

I would definitely keep on his jacket and his heat lamp, and lots of attention so he knows he wants to live. From your account, he is doing well.

BTW, Nasco sells several brands of powdered colostrum, each claiming to be better than the others. I don't know which is best.

[Selden]

Thank you, Joann, for spelling it out so clearly. I will take his temperature this morning.

Ferdinand seems stronger and perkier. I have my fingers crossed. The farmer will not let me come back for milk -- doesn't want strangers around his barn. I'm just approaching the end of the 3 gallons of milk/colostrum from his mother that the farmer would have dumped anyway. I bought a 50# bag of 20/20 Nutrena Snowflake milk replacer (I couldn't get Sav-a-Caf except by mail and the shipping charges would have been $27), but it has been such a long fight to get Ferdinand's diarrhea under control, I'm thinking that during this break in the snowstorms I'll call dairies 1.5 hrs north of here to see if I can buy raw milk for him on a once a week basis.

Thanks again to all.
Selden