Constipated Calf?

[renerice]

I figured I better post a new topic for this question since it doesn't have anything to do with my first question about our calf. (here's the original one for this calf viewtopic.php?f=7&t=71580&e=0)

We have an 8 day old bull calf. We had not seen him poop at all for a day-and-a-half, then he did one very small pile that looked like dog poop in consistency. That was two days ago, and I have not seen him go since. I did see him, just a few minutes ago, standing with his tail up & back arched trying to go, but nothing came out. He's in a pretty small pen, so I'm pretty sure I'd see it if he went when I wasn't looking. He is still very active and happy, and is eating really well (he gets a quart of milk four times-a-day). We have been mixing plain yogurt into his morning and evening feedings to see if that would help. Is there anything else I should be doing?

 

[kenny thomas]

If you are sure he is not going, give him some mineral oil and stand back.

 

[renerice]

Thanks for the advice! We decided to wait another day before doing the mineral oil since he seemed so happy and healthy, today he finally went a ton. It looked really hard at first, but by the time he was done it looked almost normal. So I guess we'll just continue to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't get constipated again.

 

[wbvs58]

Milk has very low residual after digestion, even though he is young he also should be starting to nibble on a bit of roughage such as some good quality lucerne chaff. That is if he is not already getting it.
Ken

 

[hillsdown]

Thanks for the advice! We decided to wait another day before doing the mineral oil since he seemed so happy and healthy, today he finally went a ton. It looked really hard at first, but by the time he was done it looked almost normal. So I guess we'll just continue to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't get constipated again.

This is the same fella with contracted tendons ? I think because he does not move around as much as his contemporaries would be at this time that would also help plug him up. You can probably quit giving him the probios as well now and I would put out a good quality dairy calf starter ration for him to start nibbling on too. If he does plug up again ,mineral or vegetable oil will help him out as was stated earlier.

How are his tendons doing any more improvement ?

 

[renerice]

Yeah, we were going to start him on calf starter feed a few days ago, but things got busy and we haven't made it to the feed store to get some yet. We're going to get it today. Hopefully that'll help him out.

hillsdown- Yep, this is the one with contracted tendons. We were thinking lack of movement probably had something to do with it. Especially since when he finally did go, it was after we had brought him into the front yard and got him to run around a bit and get some exercise. We'll definitely keep the mineral/vegetable oil in mind for if this happens again. His tendons have improved more the past three days than they did in the whole first week! He is actually starting to walk on his toes for short distances. And when he does walk knuckled over, he walks on his hoof wall a lot more than his joint. I am pretty encouraged. Hopefully he'll just keep on improving.

 

[HOSS]

I have had a couple of calves get "plugged" up with that first colostrum / milk. It comes out thick and yellow and does not fall to the ground. Then it dries into a hard cap over the anus. They strain and strain when they try to evacuate their bowels again because the anus is blocked. I had to hold these down and scrape the old manure off of their anus with a pocket knife. It was abaout as hard as a rubber sink stopper. Once it was scraped off they were able to evacuate themselves fine. Both of the calves that I had this happen to was in the same year so I don't know if it had something to do with their mothers diets or what. Nasty job though.

 

[John T]

I figured I better post a new topic for this question since it doesn't have anything to do with my first question about our calf. (here's the original one for this calf viewtopic.php?f=7&t=71580&e=0)

We have an 8 day old bull calf. We had not seen him poop at all for a day-and-a-half, then he did one very small pile that looked like dog poop in consistency. That was two days ago, and I have not seen him go since. I did see him, just a few minutes ago, standing with his tail up & back arched trying to go, but nothing came out. He's in a pretty small pen, so I'm pretty sure I'd see it if he went when I wasn't looking. He is still very active and happy, and is eating really well (he gets a quart of milk four times-a-day). We have been mixing plain yogurt into his morning and evening feedings to see if that would help. Is there anything else I should be doing?