Calf with a cleft lip/nostril

[Mooma20]

Hello, I accidentally posted this in the wrong thread earlier. I am new to this page so i apologize. I have tried searching but I didn't have any luck finding the info I am looking for. We have a calf that was born to a heifer and he has a cleft lip/nostril. I'm looking for feeding tips. This little guy was also possibly stuck in the birth canal too long or it was a difficult labor.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Snorter!
Look up dwarfism in cattle it's one of the traits if I remember correctly.

 

[Dsth]

welcome to the forum. I wish I could give you some advise but I have been fortunate so far that I have not had that problem. hope the little guy does well for you. good luck

 

[Hpacres440p]

Feel in his mouth to see if it extends into the palate. If it does, I think that won't be a good outcome

 

[Mooma20]

Feel in his mouth to see if it extends into the palate. If it does, I think that won't be a good outcome

I have felt inside and don't feel any opening beyond the nostril.

 

[Mooma20]

welcome to the forum. I wish I could give you some advise but I have been fortunate so far that I have not had that problem. hope the little guy does well for you. good luck

Thank you! We are doing what we can for now! He made it through the night which is more than any of use thought would happen given how he looked when he got here.

 

[Mooma20]

Snorter!
Look up dwarfism in cattle it's one of the traits if I remember correctly.

I will look that up!

 

[MurraysMutts]

I will look that up!

I've heard they can have a difficult time nursing.
The outcome of that is obvious, unfortunately

 

[faster horses]

We had one once that was a result of the cow eating Lupine at the wrong state of gestation. It usually doesn't have a good outcome. So sorry.

Cleft palate? Caused by weeds?

Last year I had four calves with cleft palate. I thought maybe to blame MLV, so I switched to KV. This year I have two cleft palate out of 80 calves. My daughter/vet student has sent me some info about Lupines and Croatelaria which I'm trying to eradicate. Is there anything else I should look...

www.cattletoday.com

 

[Silver]

Seems like Gcreek had one that he raised up to a good enough size to eat. Don't remember it looking that bad though. He posted pictures of him on here time to time.

 

[Mooma20]

He is able to stand with some help and giving it his best shot! Got some fight in him! Won't let him suffer if the outcome starts to look grim. Thank you for all the comments!

 

[Silver]

Found one of Gcreek's threads on his calf.

Speaking of money makers.....

Greg is now officially a two year old, helped him to suck for the first ten days of his life. He has had the same vaccinations as the rest of the herd and did get a Draxxin once because of a sniffly nose Thinking feed conversion around 251 to 1.

www.cattletoday.com

 

[Hereford2]

Might have to use a lamb nipple of the kind that fits on a calf bottle? Has he drank from a bottle yet? Did he get clostrum?

 

[wbvs58]

We'll see how the cell salts work on this one.

Ken

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Ken - explain???
Mooma - welcome to the board. Sorry about your calf. As asked, has the calf gotten any colostrum? Do you know how to tube a calf? You did not say if the calf has been able to suck.

 

[Mooma20]

Might have to use a lamb nipple of the kind that fits on a calf bottle? Has he drank from a bottle yet? Did he get clostrum?

We have tubed him a couple times with powdered colostrum and have tried to put him in with his mom. She took him back so we will have to see if he can suck! If not we bought a lamb nipple to try! Thank you!

 

[Hereford2]

That's good! Do you have a place where you can put the cow in a shoot and milk her clostrum into a bottle for the calf?

 

[farmerjan]

We had one like that about 3 years ago. He managed to suck the cow, sloppily, but did grow. He would get right in the bunk and eat grain along with the rest but did manage to drop alot back into the bunk... We did put him in the freezer at about 2 yrs old... I think he weighed around 900 live weight. Meat was good. He wouldn't have brought anything at the stockyard and he was one of the first to come in so we kept him in with calves smaller than him and he taught several groups to come in the barn when they were weaned off the cows. Plus they didn't push him out of the feed. If he had not continued to slowly gain he would have been butchered sooner.

 

[Putangitangi]

I had one almost exactly like that last year. She was really slow to get up and then I had to feed her. I fed her, kept her going for weeks until it became obvious that there was more than one problem going on. When we put her down, I had a good look inside her mouth: her palate simply wasn't "finished" and it wasn't just the structure, it was also the tissues that covered those parts of her mouth, so she had ulceration along the edges of where the palate stopped. It must have been really painful all the time. If your calf were mine, knowing what I do now, I'd put it out of its misery now, rather than make him suffer trying to keep him going.

 

[wbvs58]

Ken - explain???
Mooma - welcome to the board. Sorry about your calf. As asked, has the calf gotten any colostrum? Do you know how to tube a calf? You did not say if the calf has been able to suck.

Jeanne, I was just having a dig at our friend that recommends the homeopathic cell salts for all the under and over bites that everyone's calves seem to have. I thought she would be all over this one.

Ken