CALF PROBLEM!! Won't take bottle after 3 wks!

[chexmix]

I really need some advice.

I have this 3 week old angus calf who won't take a bottle!
We found him when he was 2 1/2 days old, and he had gotten little to none colostrum. (when we saw him the day he was born, he was following his mom around and trying to nurse. he looked fine but the next day we realized he'd gotten nothing.) I put him in a clean, airy stall. So I was going to give him a colostrum replacer but it turned out to be years old, so I dumped it out and gave him milk replacer instead. I know he needed colostrum, but the closest thing I had was milk replacer. So for a week and a half I gave him 2 quarts of replacer and an egg twice a day. (All this was with a tube...wouldn't take bottle)

So here I am. he's 3 wks old and shows no interest in me or a bottle. I have to pick him up most of the time. He walks around a little bit, and has trotted away once. But, you would think he would start looking for milk from me. So I'm still using a tube for every meal. He has been scouring since day 4, so I did a 3 day electrolyte treatment to hydrate him. But it still persists because he needs to get grain into his system.
~ I honestly don't mind tube feeding but it has it's disadvantages. For one, a calf that is nursing from a bottle will follow me around and take grain from my hand. BUT, this little guy could care less about me! I really need him to eat grain.

I had a calf this past winter with the same problems, and after 2 weeks he began looking for milk and quickly took a bottle. He's now a stunted, but healthy calf. So why won't this calf follow suit?

So all I can figure is he's a "dumb sucker" or something. Please give me some advice. I've tried everything to get him interested.

 

[Bez+]

Sell him - at a loss if necessary and start over.

Or call a veterinarian.

Or do a search on these boards - lots of info.

Personally I would sell the POS.

Waste of time fighting this - get one that works.

Regards

Bez+

 

[Alice]

Have you put grain out or are you trying to get him to eat it from your hand only? If you are trying to get it to eat from your hand, you fighting a losing battle since the calf won't take a bottle from you.

He's not gonna come around you because you are tubing him and he's associating that with something really unpleasant, in my opinion. I'm surprised he's lived this long, what with having no colostrum and being scoured.

He still needs the nourishment from the milk and if the only way to get him to take it is the tube, then do it since it's obvious he's not gonna take it from the bottle. Mix the milk 16 ozs milk replacer with 2 pints of water. That way he'll get the milk replacer he needs but less water, which will probably leave him hungry and ready to nose around from some feed...plus, it takes less time to tube the replacer.

Also, while you give the electrolytes, don't withhold the milk. AND, give the calf some probios every day. AND, put some grassy type hay out for the calf.

Just curious...as that calf by himself? Do you have a calf that is already eating grain that you can put in with the calf. Monkey see, monkey do...



Alice

 

[backhoeboogie]

This will sound cruel but if it were me, I'd get straddle his back, pull his neck up, stick the bottle in his mouth, squeeze his jaws, and he would either swallow or else choke on the milk replacer. In three days time he will be hunting that bottle. Use a bottle rack as soon as you can.

Read what Alice wrote. That may work for you as well.

I have never tubed a calf. I have never lost a bottle calf either. I have never lost a calf that I put on a nurse cow. This includes the calves I tended for daddy back when I was a kid. I force them to take the bottle. This year I only had 8 that were on my nurse cow. I don't deal with 100's of them like some folks do but I have probably dealt with something like 500 over the past three decades, more of them in the 70's than lately.

 

[Lammie]

I lost the only calf I tubed. He never took the bottle and I could nevr make him take it. I have done the "straddle and force" method and it has worked for calvest that have been on the mamma, but if you have been tubing him for that long, I don't think he'll make it. I hated tubing myself. I had to get someone to help me and I hate cramming that tube down the throat.

I did have a calf, the one in my freezer right now, who was three weeks old when I got him and he never took a bottle. He was bigger and better than the other bottle calves I had. He's tasty, too.

 

[Alice]

This will sound cruel but if it were me, I'd get straddle his back, pull his neck up, stick the bottle in his mouth, squeeze his jaws, and he would either swallow or else choke on the milk replacer.

Nothing cruel about it...I've just never had any success with it once a calf has nursed it's mother more than three of four times.

Alice

 

[rockridgecattle]

Tubing him that much could make his throat and esophagus tube swollen and sore. You should get him on an anti inflamatry soon. It would take down the swelling and he might feel better to take the bottle. I also do what beefy said.

 

[jkwilson]

Maybe he needs to be hungrier. Skip a feeding, then try a few hours later.

 

[Keren]

I'm going to ask a straightforward question . . . and dont get offended.

How hard did you try to get him to take the bottle in the first place? Reason I ask is because I have had on a number of occasions, well-meaning but slightly clueless people ringing me and saying they need a lamb tubed because it wont drink from the bottle. I go out there with the tube but I always ask them to get a bottle ready. I try that, and 98% of the time they have held the bottle in front of the animal, or in its mouth, and given up.

Backhoeboogie is right, you need to stick the bottle in his mouth and hang on to him until he drinks. Even if he does suck he may just swallow.

Honestly though, sounds like this calf is not doing so well. Tubing him for three weeks, what two, three times a day? You have to pick him up, he more or less just lays there all the time? Sours from day four to 21?

Sounds like he doesnt want to live, and you are just prolonging the inevitable.

 

[bward]

Chexmix,

I have been where you are. I too had a calf that would not suck a bottle, a thumb, a finger, nothing but its mothers teat that was attached to an empty non working tiny bag. I discovered the calf starving to death, and had to intervene and did so with tubing. I tried a bottle for about 2 weeks and finally gave up. I was finally able to get the calf to drink water from a rubber bowl, but not milk replacer! I weaned the calf from its mother and started the calf on calf starter pellets that were milk based and kept the calf on that and water in a bowl. She did fine on that but never amounted to much but I kept her until I weaned the other calves and she was ready to go on without any milk base in her diet.

Don't sell her at auction to some unsuspecting kid looking for a bottle baby. I really hate it when some posts advise passing your problem off to someone else by simply selling it.

 

[Joy in Texas]

I had a calf that wouldn't suck a bottle. I tried everything. I ended up wetting the nipple and I put some sugar on it. It took a couple of times but the calf finally started taking the bottle.
You know sometimes I wonder ,if there is more than not wrong with somes calves. I mean is it natures way of telling you that, when the cow doesn't want it. Or it does not want to eat.

 

[dun]

If it drink milk from a bucket do it that way. If it won;t, just wack it and write it off as a loss.

 

[rockridgecattle]

dun


If it drink milk from a bucket do it that way. If it won;t, just wack it and write it off as a loss.

Ouch but true :shock:

 

[larryshoat]

Does not sound good for this little guy.
Some good advice on these posts.
I don't like the idea of mixing powder in less water.
We usually cut the end out of a nipple and make him swallow it.
To get some solids in him we put a little oatmeal in his milk.
Some kaopectate might help to heal the gut.