devonian
Well-known member
Hi there we had a calf born on the 1st of the month in the field that I suspected hadn't nursed so we brought it into a shed with the mother and it simply will not suck from the mother. I tubed it some colostrum on the 2nd and that didn't go overly smoothly it panicked near the end. I've tried bottle feeding it but it will not take, its like it cannot physically suck. So after searching around online I heard of one trick which was to open up the hole on the end of the teat so effectively you are pouring milk into the calf, I did this on an older feeding bottle we have. This sort of works but is incredibly slow and I can only seem to get about a litre down it at best per feeding its pretty frustrating it seems to snort and reject it after a short while. I've checked its temp and its ok at 38.7 C and I been giving it probiotics (which I swear by) so no diarrhea and it has access to water but other than that I have no idea what to do its still relatively agile but just doesn't seem to be able to suck as I said. Does anyone have any ideas of what I can do going forward?