*13 PBP I don't know if I should worry about Helen?

[Lannie]

Little Helen has done a very strange thing a few times, and I'm wondering if it's something I should worry about. I've never seen it before in any of my calves (which is only 6 so not a whole lot).

Basically, what she does is wobble and stagger for a minute, usually after she gets up from lying down. But not every time. It's only happened 4 times that Rich and I have seen, but it's almost like her legs are asleep. She LOOKS like she's lying down in the "proper" position, I mean she doesn't have her legs tied in knots or anything, but just every once in a while, she'll stagger and sometimes even fall down right after she gets up.

The first 3 times she did it, it was when I was milking TAD, and Helen was locked up overnight, and then again from about 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm when I did evening milking. I also think Bandit had some edema at first because I wasn't getting much milk out and Helen seemed to have trouble getting Bandit's udder empty. It still seemed very full, even after Helen had given up trying to get any more milk. So when Helen was a week old, I went to OAD, and left her with Bandit all day, thinking she wasn't getting enough milk. Helen will be two weeks old on Friday. (And by the way, the edema has passed, if that's what it was, and she's empty when we're done taking milk from her now.)

Anyway, Helen seemed fine after I went to OAD, and I figured that was it, but this morning, when she got up to come out of her stall and jumpstart Bandit, she was staggering again, and actually fell to her knees for a moment before picking herself up and wobbling over to Bandit. A minute later, she was fine, and had no problem working her legs. When I tried to put her back in her stall, she pulled back (she evidently wasn't finished yet! LOL!) and I really had to yank her to get her moving. I finished milking my side then, and let Helen back out to finish it all off, and she happily trotted from her stall to Bandit.

Rich was thinking it might be something like a pinched nerve (?) that's causing her legs to sometimes go to sleep when she lays down, and that might be it, but it only happens once in a great while, so I'm kind of puzzled. Hopefully, if it's a pinched nerve, she'll grow out of it as she gets bigger. The rest of the time, she's a normal, bouncy, playful little girl. She bucks and runs and jumps and kicks and does all the normal calf things. I just don't know if I should be worried about this intermittent problem, or if there's something I could do to help.

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this?

~Lannie

[lew92]

What is the selenium status of your area? We've been dealing with white muscle disease here in some of the salebarn calves and with a couple of them the first thing I see is a lot of falling down. The first couple of times, it looks like Jersey drama/I fell and died, but when it is every time they get up or have their lead line tugged on, I know there's something more going on.

I hope you get it figured out soon.

[Lannie]

You know, I don't know. The last I heard, which was several years ago, it was good. But I don't know if the drought would have anything to do with it? It's SO dry here, we haven't had an inch of rain total in the last three months.

She doesn't fall down every time, though, either. It's only once in a while. That's what has me puzzled so... if it was every time, then I'd worry.

Here are some pictures of her being normal:

Bucking


MORE bucking


Mugging for grandpa


Practicing to be a milk cow


I dunno. Other than the 4 times we've seen her stagger or wobble (I've only seen her actually FALL down twice), she seems completely normal and fine. I guess I'll just keep a watchful eye on her.

~Lannie

[BasleeBackwoodsFarm]

I dunno either Lannie, but she sure is a cutie!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lannie]

Thanks. She's not only cute, but sweet, just like her mom. I sure wish she'd stay the color she is now, but she won't. She'll be jet black in another few weeks.

~Lannie

(She's also the CLEANEST calf in the whole world. I swear, Bandit won't stop washing her! LOL! When I pet her, my hand slides right off...)

[Lannie]

Oh, and I just looked up a selenium map, and our county has 0.72 ppm, which seems to be at the high end of the scale, so it's probably not a selenium deficiency. Maybe she was positioned wonky before birth and she's got a kink in a nerve somewhere and she'll grow out of it.

~Lannie

[jerseylovinliz]

My goodness she's cute! Do y'all Armoroil her b/c she has got the shiniest coat I think I've seen!?! I love her spunky attitude!

I don't have a clue other than maybe her tendons developed kind-of caty-wampus & now she's just got to work it out? That's just a guess though. Her front legs seem a tenny bit shorter than the rear in your pics. It very well could be the angle of the shot. In human babies that were in a funny position in-utero (?) they can have a period of trouble w/their leg/s. Stretching, braces & massage are the treatment so I would think even if it's that she'll be fine b/c they're not buckeling.

[Mitra]

What a cutie patootie and with 'tude!

I have to say that the subject line just made my heart jump. I miss Helen Heiferlump

[Lannie]

I know, Mitra, I miss her, too. That's why this little one is named after her. YOUR Helen will live on in my heart, even if my Helen doesn't look like her. I think she has her spunk, though.

Liz, she's so clean because Bandit won't let her get dirty! She DOES feel like she's been Armor-All'd though! She's slick!

I don't think her front legs are shorter, I think it's the angle of the picture, but here's another one... the ground is fairly level, but she's got her front feet out a little. I interrupted her dinner (note the foamy beard on her lower lip).



This picture was on day one, she was only about 12 hours old here. She actually looks a bit hunched here, but now that I look at the picture, it seems like her right front leg was bent backward a bit at the knee.



Well, I suppose as long as she's eating, playing, sleeping, and growing, I'll just watch her and hopefully it's some temporary thing that will work itself out. I did notice a couple of times the day she was born that when she tried to get up, her front feet knuckled under before she got them right, but I figured that was just because she was still learning how to use those things. Who knows? One thing I DO know, every calf brings me more experience, and I just keep learning new things.



~Lannie

[twistedwillow]

Our latest calf did that for the first week and a half or so. His front knees also bent backward- like SERIOUSLY backward! He was a twin and didn't seem like he wasn very "well done" yet though. It also took him about 24 hours to actually stand up completely on his own, and even more to talk without falling over on his side. He's now about 3 weeks old and it totally fine. His legs are straight and no more of the "drunk calf" stagger. And boy is he full of it!
Your little girl is absolutely adorable! And I LOVE her brindled momma!

[wyomama]

She looks a little wind swept to me. If you look at her straight on, does it look like her knees curve off to hre right just a tad? That happens with long legged colts in utero, don't know why it couldn't happen with a calf. She should be right as rain in another week or so - bucking and bebopping around is the best thing for her. ;D

[BasleeBackwoodsFarm]

In the last picture it does look like her right leg is bowed. I would also say she'll be better in no time. It should straighten out. We've had some that were too cramped and were a little wobbly for 2 or so weeks and they soon straightened out.

[lew92]

With all that bucking and bouncing around, I don't think you have anything to worry about. She's sure adorable - but NO white face? How unusual in a Bandit baby!

[Lannie]

She did seem to have unusually long legs when she was born. She's fat as a tick from all that good Bandy-milk, so I can't really see it in the pictures, but the day she was born I thought she looked like a foal. Her legs were WAY longer than her body size would account for. At least in my experience. I have a picture in my mind of what a "normal" 1/2 Angus calf looks like, and her legs were longer. So maybe that was it.

Wyo, I don't know about the knee bend thing from straight on. I can't remember them looking bent or bowed one way or the other, but she's always moving, so maybe if I had a picture straight on that I could look at, I could see something. But I don't think I'm going to fuss over this any more. I'm sure like everyone says this is just some temporary thing that will work itself out. She was very small when she was born, so my first thought wouldn't have been that she was cramped in utero, but those legs were a lot longer than what I'm used to seeing, so... I'll just keep watching her. That won't be hard. She's just beyond cute in MY biased opinion! LOL!

~Lannie

[Lannie]

Sept 6, 2012 7:22:51 GMT -5 lew92 said:

With all that bucking and bouncing around, I don't think you have anything to worry about. She's sure adorable - but NO white face? How unusual in a Bandit baby!

Yeah, that IS strange, isn't it? No, wait, Taz was all black, too. It was just Seven that had the white "7" on his face. And of course, Cricket's daddy was a Jersey, so her breeding is different than all the rest of Bandit's babies. Cricket's calves were both solid black, too, and I expect this next one will be as well. That's OK, if we take them to the sale barn, solid black brings in a few extra bucks. You know they never even ASK what the breeding is? I guess they just assume if they're black, they're Angus.

~Lannie

[lew92]

Cricket and Bandit just have such "out there" white faces, I'm surprised that it doesn't get passed on to the babies, no matter who the daddy is.

Solid black brings much better at the sale barn here, too. When she was born, Etta looked a lot like Helen does and is now all black. She looks all Angus, too, even though she is 3/8 Jersey and 1/8 Holstein. Why couldn't the bull calf we got last year go that way? He looked all Jersey.

[Jenn]

Cocoa's calf this year looked just like a colt...all legs and stiff. He seems "behind" to me compared to Miss Swiss' calf, I think he should be eating more...but I thought that last time for her bull calf and when he started eating all the milk, he took off.

-Jenn

[Lannie]

Well, you guys were all absolutely right. She hasn't stumbled or wobbled since that time coming out of her stall, and last night she went for her first full-out run. (All my others have been running from day two, or in Cricket's case, day ONE, so that also had me a little concerned.)

Normally, at evening chores, I bring hay for the girls and they come into the barn with Helen trailing along. She dinks around for a while, checking things out in the barn, or having a last snack before bedtime, and then while I have her stall open, changing her water, she goes in and I shut the door. Not last night. I was going about my routine nonchalantly as I usually do, I dumped the old water out of her tub, and got a fresh bucket to fill it, and sure enough, she went in her stall. But just as I was coming in with the bucket of water, she blasted past me and back out into the barn. Eh, no big deal, a little push on her butt and she'd go in. But noooooo, Helen wasn't READY for bed yet.

When I finished with her water and hung the bucket back up, she was just outside the pasture gate (I'll have to close that immediately from now on!). I walked toward her to give her chin scritches and get hold of her halter and she danced away. I followed. Geez, when will I learn? So she pranced a little farther, I followed, she pranced, and I couldn't get around in front of her to herd her back toward the barn. Finally it occurred to her that Grandma was playing a game of tag, and off she went at full speed to the far end of the pasture, tail straight up in the air, like a little warthog!

To Bandit's credit, she's finally relaxed about her new baby enough now that she didn't immediately drop a load on the barn floor and take off after Helen mooing frantically. She just kept eating her hay.

Meanwhile, out in the pasture... I had totally forgotten about the Poochie Portals Rich put in along the cross fence for the Pyrs to go back and forth. Helen stopped in front of one of them, and to my horror, I realized that she's short enough to walk right through them if she ducked her head down a little. All my other babies have been taller, and by the time they came out in the pasture, they were too big to fit through them. I guess Helen's been happy enough hanging out with mom and big sis, so she hasn't ever seen a need to use them. Luckily for me, she didn't last night either, but I think we might have to go tack up some temporary boards across to make those things shorter. Better the dogs have to duck than Helen get over in the horse pasture and Bandit be disassembling the cross-fence to get to her.

So I finally got out to Helen and a little bit ahead of her, and shooshed her back in the direction of the barn, so she WENT! Three seconds flat! If I'd been on a horse, I doubt I could have kept up with her! LOL! I trudged back toward the barn, and before I'd gotten even halfway there, she was out again and streaking past me. "Can't catch ME, grandma! HA!" Yeah, right, and I'm not even gonna try, you little snot. I almost hollered for Rich to come help me round her up, but he was busy doing the chickens' food and water, so I sauntered on back to the barn and waited just inside the gate. Her curiosity finally got the better of her, and she came streaking back in to see why I wasn't still playing, and as soon as she cleared the gate, I swung it shut. After that, it was a simple matter of pointing her at the stall and giving her a little push. She went right in.

SO. Apparently there is nothing wrong with her legs, after all. She can use them just fine, thankyouverymuch. She must just have been one of those slow starters. She was awfully tiny when she was born (I taped her at just over 50 pounds), so maybe she just had to get a little bigger, and better coordinated.

Thanks for holding my hand and reassuring me. I always worry so about my babies.

~Lannie

[wyomama]

Meanwhile, out in the pasture...