Last year I experienced a high number of unassisted new born calves that would get up and around and look fine, but not nurse and get colostrum early. Lost calves!
CALVING SITUATION/ISSUE AND QUESTION:
You just went to the “calving barn/lot/field”. You find a perfect looking, healthy, strong, new born calf with mama cow attending (maybe licking calf off or maybe calf is cleaned, dry and up walking/running around). You DO NOT KNOW HOW LONG THE CALF HAS BEEN BORN.
BUT, you do NOT see calf nurse. You check later and calf not nursing. You check again later and calf STILL not nursing. Also, you can not detect if cows teats have been “sucked/cleaned off” and NO quarters of the mama cows udders seem to be “drawn down/reduced/milked down). P.S. i know what the books say...
HOW LONG, IN HOURS, DO YOU WAIT TO SUPPLEMENT COLOSTRUM TO NEW BORN CALF?
I use commercially purchased powered colostrum. REASONS: Ease of storage, mixing, availability, orally communicable disease control from unknown cows in real milk, specifically, Johnes’s Disease in our geographic area. I normally use half of a bag of powered colostrum in a quart of warm water and a half cup of liquid corn syrup mixture. If I do not see the calf nurse in 8-12 hours, I will give the mixture again.
Example: I know one cattleman that uses a strict policy of. If he has NOT seen calf nurse within 6 hours of “finding” the new born calf, he automaticaly “Tubes” colostrum to calf.
CALVING SITUATION/ISSUE AND QUESTION:
You just went to the “calving barn/lot/field”. You find a perfect looking, healthy, strong, new born calf with mama cow attending (maybe licking calf off or maybe calf is cleaned, dry and up walking/running around). You DO NOT KNOW HOW LONG THE CALF HAS BEEN BORN.
BUT, you do NOT see calf nurse. You check later and calf not nursing. You check again later and calf STILL not nursing. Also, you can not detect if cows teats have been “sucked/cleaned off” and NO quarters of the mama cows udders seem to be “drawn down/reduced/milked down). P.S. i know what the books say...
HOW LONG, IN HOURS, DO YOU WAIT TO SUPPLEMENT COLOSTRUM TO NEW BORN CALF?
I use commercially purchased powered colostrum. REASONS: Ease of storage, mixing, availability, orally communicable disease control from unknown cows in real milk, specifically, Johnes’s Disease in our geographic area. I normally use half of a bag of powered colostrum in a quart of warm water and a half cup of liquid corn syrup mixture. If I do not see the calf nurse in 8-12 hours, I will give the mixture again.
Example: I know one cattleman that uses a strict policy of. If he has NOT seen calf nurse within 6 hours of “finding” the new born calf, he automaticaly “Tubes” colostrum to calf.
