Acupuncture and Calf not Sucking

[katienz]

This board has many posts about problems with calves not sucking with many helpful suggestions about way to overcome this. All of those suggestions we had either previously tried or if not we gave it a go. But whatever we tried we basically still had a calf with no suck reflex. The calf today was seven days old being tube fed. At midday we asked a vet to come who was experienced in acupuncture. ( It was either going to be a needle or a bullet as our frustration levels were high!). After checking the calf out and making sure it had a swallow reflex and everything else was normal he applied six acupuncture needles. The calf immediately started sucking anything and within a couple of minutes with a little direction to the teat was feeding on mum. It has again fed on mum a couple of hours later without any direction from us. We are told that there can be two reasons why a calf like this would not have any suck reflex - its mother could have been exposed to bvd during the later stage of pregnancy and the calf was consequently brain damaged (in which case nothing would work) or the calf had experienced some sort of neck injury or trauma. In the case of this calf we know that the day before birth it was in an awkward position in utero with its head twisted so that would support some sort of nerve damage in the neck area. However whatever the cause the application of the acupuncture needles at the right points just transformed the calf immediately. Presumably the acupuncture treatment would also work for many of those other "dummy" calves out there. Next time we won't wait seven days before trying the acupuncture. Thought we would just share this solution with you all as reading all the other posts about difficult calves gave us the determination to persist.

 

[chippie]

Where are you located?

Very interesting. I worked for an equine veterinarian who performed acupuncture on horses. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn't.

 

[Nite Hawk]

If you have a calf that has very little sucking instinct, ( NOT talking about those who have NO instinct whatsoever but a very weak instinct).
Put some milk on your finger and put it inside the mouth and rub the ROOF of the mouth up and down with one "milky" finger, and get someone to take an old rag and rub the tailhead hard to simulate a cow licking the calf's tailhead.
They will often start sucking your finger which can quickly be replaced with a bottle nipple, while your helper KEEPS rubbing the tail head.
seems the harder you rub the tailhead the harder they often suck..
Sounds REAL weird but often works....

 

[katienz]

Nite Hawk absolutely what you describe is what we do and for seven days we had tried that as well as all the other suggestions on the board. We usually move (wag) the calf's tail as well as the rubbing of the tail head. All this calf would do was lick and chew and never suck. The application of the acupuncture needles had an instant effect and I suspect that a calf with feeble suck (assuming there are not other clinical reasons for that such as illness) would respond in the same way as this calf with instant vigorous sucking.

We are located in northern New Zealand and have 110 breeding cows. Each year there are always a handful of calves who can't seem to find the teat but usually once they have been given a tate of milk and led to the teat there is no problem.

We have had acupuncture done twice before but it has been part of a treatment combination and not the only treatment as in this case.
Last year our four year old Charolais bull had pulled all his back muscles and could barely walk (he had been working too hard!). He was given a long acting anti inflammatory injection and acupuncture and was back working successfully (the proof is in the calves this year!) three days later and we think the credit for that result has to be the acupuncture.

The first time a vet used acupuncture was a few years ago on a calf that wasn't feeding well and the acupuncture was part of a treatment combination of IV fluids, tonic, B12 that she administered. That successful experience is why we thought of acupuncture for the current calf although we were never convinced that the acupuncture had been the main contributor to that success. Now we think otherwise.

No doubt the success of acupuncture depends on the needles being applied in the correct places and that the condition being treated is one that will respond to stimulation of the nerves. If this calf's condition had been caused by the cow having BVD in the third trimester causing damage to the calf's brain, then acupuncture would not have worked.

 

[Nite Hawk]

Heard of animal chiropractors, but never heard of accupuncter in animals before though. If it works great!..

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

There are large animal vets that are using some accupuncture. I think there is a school out in California that trains them.
Anyway, if you have a newborn with a heartbeat but not breathing, you stick a needle into the bridge of their nose (between eyes & nose) and supposed to get them breathing. Of course, if I was holding my breath & you hit me with a needle that hit my bone, I would probably take a big breath!!!
I'm being silly - but, yes, I have heard that it is very helpful.