Calf trembling while bottle feeding

[Pops]

We have a a one week old bottle baby Randall heifer. She was extremely hypothermic when we found her and we put her in warm bath, brought up her temp. She had 3 pints of colostrum first 24 hours. We are keeping her in stall with lamp at night, dry bedding. She appears to be super healthy running and jumping eating well, now up to 1 quart high quality milk replacer 4x a day. Today she has started trembling in back end while drinking from bottle but doesn't seem to be trembling any other time. Any idea what's happening I will call vet also tomorrow

 

[Dsth]

I did see that occasionally when I was bottle feeling Holstein calves. don't feed to many calves now with beef calves. I just figured it was because I didn't warm the milk up enough. Didn't seem to slow calf growth or add any health problems. will be interested to hear back what your vet says. glad your calf is doing well now. have had extremely hypothermic calves myself. It is always a relief to see them warm back up and start moving around.

 

[MurraysMutts]

Never had the hypothermic situation.
But I think all my bottle calves have done that for a few days when getting used to the bottle.
I had one that would do that terribly and FART with tremendous pressure while nursing. She quit after about a week. Weather wasnt even cold when this was going on.

Never hurts to call a vet but I'll wager he says keep an eye on it and see what happens.
Best of luck to ya!
Let us know what happens....plz!

 

[greggy]

if you mean movement as seen when cold ? Calves have a hard time with temp and keeping it stable, she may have been very warm laying down and then the shift in temp when up makes her shiver....shrugs.

If bright, hungry, running around etc and no runny poop, then just watch for any change in behavior there...

 

[Stickney94]

I'd agree with others, call vet to ease your mind, but I'd wager the calf/calf's body are appearing to "shiver" when really the calf is super excited to eat. If the calf is a week old and otherwise healthy that has been my experience. If the calf follows you around the pen and tries to suckle any loose appendage or article of clothing you've just trained a Pavlovian response.