? Chlorestum (1st milk)

[Anonymous]

I came home from work today to find a new born heifer calf. While doing the chores, twice I observed what I thought was mom knocking the calf out of the way when it tried to nurse. The calf was at the far end of the pasture and she may have been swatting flies. The calf is from a first time heifer.

I went to a dairy farmer and asked for some frozen chlorestrum (first milk). He sold me some of what he called "banded milk." The calf did not take any. Can I freeze this milk for later use if needed? Is it chlorestrum?

Mom seems very attentive to the calf, but not as protective as most of my cows. The other cows seem more protective when I handle the calf. Any suggestions or am I being overly concered.

 

[Anonymous]

I've never heard of banded milk, but that doesn't mean much. Ask the dairyman if it is colustrum and if it is, yes, it can be frozen. Is the calf nursing? If she is, don't worry, if not, she needs 1st milk. Check the mommas bag, if it's full and swollen, you need to get some milk in the baby. You can also check with your vet. they usually carry a replacement for colustrum, too.

 

[shorty]

Sometimes you have to work with a 1st calf heifer to get the calf to drink, we always keep replacement colostrum on hand when we heifers calving and try to get some in the calf as soon as we can , that gives us time to get the heifer in the chute and try to get the calf to drink, sometimes the calf and the heifer both act dumb, I've already worked with some 2 or 3 days until they are drinking good on their own, just make the calf gets some kind of colosyrum as soon as you can. Don't stock up real heavy on those colostrum packs because they do have an expiration date. we try to just have on hand what think we'll need

 

[dun]

We had a heifer that calved after letting all of the other calves nurse. She let her calf nurse once then would push it away, sometimes rather roughly, whenever it tried to nurse. We ran her in the chute and the claf nursed just fine, but seemed to really have to work to get the milk. We did that for a couple of feedings until I finally decided to check and see what was going on. No mastitis, my first suspicion, just terrible edema that only allowed very small amounts of milk to get through. Gave her a shot of Lasix(sp) in the evengin, the next morning another shot. At noon I went out to do something and there stood the heifer feeding her calf as if she had been doing it for years. We turned her out with the rest of the cows. The calf has gained 98 lbs in 27 days. The moral of all this is, there may be a reason the heifer doesn't want the calf to nurse. If it persists, check the udder. In 40+ years this is the first time I've seen edema that bad or that held on for so long.

dun

 

[Tman]

Seems to me I read somehwere that the calf would need the colostrum within the first few hours and certainly no more than a day. Had something to do with the calfs intestines/stomach to absorb the colostrom after that point.

Perhaps Dunn or L4 could shed some light on this ?

 

[dun]

The calves ability to abosrbe the stuff that gives the immunities has passed after 24 hours. After 12 hours it's getting to be pretty late for it to do it's job as well as it shoudl. That said, with bottle calves we alwasy fed cholostrum for 3 days, 6 feedings. It may not have helped the immunity part, but the nutritional value was what we were going for. Another standard rule from my old mentor!

dun

Seems to me I read somehwere that the calf would need the colostrum within the first few hours and certainly no more than a day. Had something to do with the calfs intestines/stomach to absorb the colostrom after that point.

Perhaps Dunn or L4 could shed some light on this ?

 

[D.R. Cattle]

I came home from work today to find a new born heifer calf. While doing the chores, twice I observed what I thought was mom knocking the calf out of the way when it tried to nurse. The calf was at the far end of the pasture and she may have been swatting flies. The calf is from a first time heifer.

I went to a dairy farmer and asked for some frozen chlorestrum (first milk). He sold me some of what he called "banded milk." The calf did not take any. Can I freeze this milk for later use if needed? Is it chlorestrum?

Mom seems very attentive to the calf, but not as protective as most of my cows. The other cows seem more protective when I handle the calf. Any suggestions or am I being overly concered.

Might I ask what breed the heifer is?

 

[Anonymous]

I came home from work today to find a new born heifer calf. While doing the chores, twice I observed what I thought was mom knocking the calf out of the way when it tried to nurse. The calf was at the far end of the pasture and she may have been swatting flies. The calf is from a first time heifer.

I went to a dairy farmer and asked for some frozen chlorestrum (first milk). He sold me some of what he called "banded milk." The calf did not take any. Can I freeze this milk for later use if needed? Is it chlorestrum?

Mom seems very attentive to the calf, but not as protective as most of my cows. The other cows seem more protective when I handle the calf. Any suggestions or am I being overly concered.

Might I ask what breed the heifer is?

The heifer is a Longhorn. I am happy to report calf and mom are doing fine. Mom is not producing the milk that I would expect or like. Calf has nice color and good comformation. We may bred her again and if the milk problem persists we will cull her.

I froze the milk I bought from the Dairy Farmer. I always worry about first time heifers.

The dairy farmer may have said "Banned Milk", my hearing isn't that good. "Banned Milk" would make perfect sense. As I under stand it, a dairy can not sell the milk from a cow that has calved for a certian amount of time.

Thanks for all the responds.