constipated.

[Beefy]

Bull calf, born 12-17-05, beefmaster cross, as of 5:30 was laying down doing some kicking at stomach, will get up and run but lays down soon after. looks at his stomach and kicks when not paying attention to me. witnessed him pee two times and tried to take a crap and only got 3 hard yellow turd balls out. can i say turd balls? anyway, i'm keeping an eye on him trying to keep him up (hes out with the herd in the big pasture) and i cant catch him on foot yet.. i guess the thing to do if i can catch him is tube with some kind of oil, got cooking oil and olive oil on hand. any suggestions? oh yeah, the cows are getting only peanut hay right now and the calves are trying to act like grownups.

 

[MikeC]

Mineral oil down the neck and a little in the backend to get him lubed up! ;-)

 

[Beefy]

guess i better get out the plunger...

 

[Beefy]

cooking oil will git'r done, right?

 

[msscamp]

Might be wrong here, but cooking oil generally has coloring and other stuff that might irritate areas that are best not irritated. I think I would stick to mineral oil as it's pure.

 

[pdoramus]

We had a newborn bottle calf that was constipated a couple of weeks ago. Per the advice on here we gave him some mineral oil down the throat with a syringe and put a little karo syrup in his milk replacer. Worked like a charm.

 

[ctlbaron]

Use extra heavy mineral oil. Extra lite is what baby oil is made of. It cannot be consumed. Only extra heavy.

 

[Beefy]

i wound up just watching him and moving him around whenever i could. this morning he was layed out like he was a dead. but as i got closer i saw an ear move and he woke up and got up. he and mom and their best friends joined the main herd a little later and he went to town on some teat. later, i saw the little phart tearing up some peanut hay. i guess i know better than to eat so much cheese too...

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

It was good that you observed him and he worked it out. Occasionally, you will get the same symtoms from a twisted gut. They die. Also, kicking the bellie may be a sign that they are starting to bloat. Whenever we have one going down and kicking bellie, we usually get them up & give them a shot of banamine.
Making them move around is good (like you did).