Udder problem

[jonesie]

Our cow, Molly, calved a couple of days ago. Calf is doing ok, kinda. Molly has such a huge bag and her teets are so large the calf can't find them and when I help he has a hard time sucking. Her last years calf finally figured it out and did ok. We have been milking Molly to feed the calf and you know what happens then, he loves us. What else can I do to get the little fella to suck. I have put the bottle by the teet and he will suck a tiny bit and then quit. I sure hate to have a bottle calf when Molly has enough to feed 2 calves. We are getting to old to milk. Any other ideas? Thanks, Jan

[G. Seddon]

I'd try to milk her out a bit to relieve the pressure and reduce the teat size, just enough for the calf to latch on...do a couple of teats and see what happens. Once they get stronger and succeed, they remember what to do.