My calf hates milk!

Kyla · #1 03/26/14, 09:14 PM

I have a very strange one for you guys...
I have a 2 week old calf that I got from a farmer 3 days ago. She was a twin and her mom never really recovered, she wasn't producing much milk and my calf got very little and began eating hay. The twin ended up getting stepped on and killed then the mom broke her leg and was put down. My calf (named "Almost" lol) is very undernourished and small. I've tried getting her to bottle feed, which she absolutely absolutely refuses, as well as drinking out of a bucket. She will however eat grain, I had some ground grain and she eats that quite well, she also drinks water out of a bucket. I've been tube feeding her twice daily and she's actually starting to gain a bit of weight. Anyways, has anyone had experience with this type of situation? Any recommendations on supplements to help her grow?

Awnry Abe · #2 03/26/14, 09:34 PM

Not in the calf world. But in the goat world, we do things to coax the rumen awake, like doses of probiotics and mixing yogurt in with the milk. I also give B-complex shots in that situation. --again--with goat kids. They aren't the same critter, but there may be some overlap that is useful. And I usually do this in a "no appetite" situation. Yours sounds a little different.

MO_cows · #3 03/26/14, 09:42 PM

There is a shot you can get from the vet, BoSe. It might boost the calf enough to give it more appetite. In the meantime, put some dry milk in with the feed so it takes some in that way. A calf that young won't get very much out of the grain, can't digest it properly. It needs milk or it will be a runt and maybe not even survive. Was the calf bottle fed before? Maybe it was nursing the cow and doesn't want to make the switch to the bottle??

sammyd · #4 03/26/14, 10:25 PM

What sort of milk are you feeding it?

barnbilder · #5 03/26/14, 11:22 PM

I've had experience with tube fed bottle fighters. Drink from mom, then the rubber nipple tastes all icky, and then someone takes pity and tubes them, then they learn that when the humans come, miraculously their tummy gets full. Only cure is to take everything away and let them get good and hungry. If you have tubed it enough for it to make it this long, eight to twelve hours without anything should do it. You might have to hold the bottle in it's mouth and massage it's throat for quite some time but once it takes off it will eat like it's never eaten before. If it keeps fighting you over the bottle, walk away, come back in an hour. It has to learn that it needs to suck the bottle, which is hard to do once they get used to just laying there and letting you pour the milk in with a tube. Cattle are lazy. If it won't suck after it gets good and hungry, hungry enough to bawl, their is something wrong with your milk, nipple, temperature, or something. I had one once that was brain damaged from a difficult birth. It never did learn to suck from a bottle, and eventually died. But it couldn't stand up well, or move it's head around normally. Sometimes it's a real fight, you have to stick their head between your legs, back their butt up to a wall, and stand there with the nipple in their mouth, and milk running out the corners. But they will figure it out. If you give in and tube them, you're back to square one.

barnbilder · #6 03/26/14, 11:30 PM

One more thing, if a calf has been tubed over maybe once or twice, it seems to me that they are prone to pneumonia, no matter how careful you are. I usually don't recommend just giving stuff antibiotics, but this might be one of the few times. Of course, the antibiotics will mess up the whole gut system, so following up with probiotics would be a good idea.

G. Seddon · #7 03/27/14, 07:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sammyd

What sort of milk are you feeding it?

Important question!

Jennifer L. · #8 03/27/14, 09:00 AM

If she drinks water from a pail, why not give her cold milk replacer, instead? She'll drink it when she gets thirsty enough.

Kyla · #9 03/27/14, 10:21 AM

I'm feeding IFA brand Maxi Care milk replacer. I've raised a lot of bottle calves and know how to get them started, I did that the first two days with her. Then I let her go hungry for a little while and tried again. Nothing helped and she was so weak I thought I would lose her. I did give her antibiotics to help with a bit of a snotty nose and that has cleared up. Honestly, I'm totally fine with tough love but she's skinny enough and weak enough that I worry. I have been mixing powdered milk with her grain and she's eating that. I've tried warm milk, cold milk, dilute, normal strength, different nipples, holding her in the corner letting milk run into her mouth and getting her to drink it out of a bowl. She absolutely refuses. Other than being thin she actually looks pretty good, she's out munching on leaves right now. I know that she needs milk, I just don't know how else to convince her of that. Oh, and I have two other calves that I'm feeding and they don't have any issue drinking their bottles at all.

barnbilder · #10 03/27/14, 10:04 PM

Sounds like you have an oddball on your hands. Hardest one I ever had was one that was on the cow about two weeks and the cow died. That calf never did like to drink from a bottle, but it finally would. Every time was like the first time for about a week.

Jennifer L. · #11 03/29/14, 05:43 PM

I think I've told this story on here before, but I tube fed a calf for weeks because she WOULD NOT drink or suck. Totally refused everything I did. I still had the milking herd then and finally just turned her out with the cows and still kept tube feeding her morning and night, hoping she might take to sucking a cow, at least. I mean, at that point I didn't care if she was taking milk away from the bulk tank! At about five weeks I caught her drinking water. The little snot had probably been doing it for a long time, and was just being as stubborn as I've ever seen a calf.

Got no idea why she did it, never saw anything like that before or after. And no cow was coming for milking that had been sucked, either, so she wasn't getting milk at all, just what I tubed her. Just plain weird. Sounds like the same deal going on with your calf that this one of mine had.

Hope she comes around for you!

Kyla · #12 03/29/14, 11:45 PM

Finally, after a week of fighting I managed to get her nursing. I tube fed her twice daily for almost a week, and managed to build her strength a little. Tonight she drank a whole bottle, which is the best feeling ever at this point. Thanks everyone for the responses!