Hello everbody like to introduce myself. Never been good at it but I will do my best, and I also have a sick steer calf I need some help with.
Well I was born and raised in Elkhart,IN graduated from Concord High School and moved out on my own by 18. Joined the United States Army Active Duty by a month before turning 23 in 2007 ,and served 4 years active and completed 1 tour in Afghanistan from March 2010-March 2011 and now im IRR (inactive ready reserve) for my remander of 4 more years. I havnt got a job lined up yet so Im living with my parents in lower Michigan area, but putting full days of work on their farm/property. Any other questions about myself just ask :)
My parents have 6 steer calfs breeds are 4 holstien and 2 Normandy.
The sick calf is a holstien
They have 15 acres of propery.
They have about a 2 acres pasture for grazing but most of their food is supplemented by a little feed grain but mostly hay.
Hay consists of 50% alfalfa 50% timothy hay.
Their barn isnt very large so the area where the steer eat and like to come in and sleep is limited so that increases risk of dieases by contamination due to droppings. I went out and bought some more rubber mats for them and layed em and built an elevated feeding trough to keep their hay from getting conaminated by their own waste. (Cow was down before all this). Sanitation was an issue i dont blame my parents to hard for it cause they work full time at irregular times so cleaning was an issue. They were using their own feeding hay as bedding which im sure was not a good idea because they steer might eat it. I fixed that solution by buying a proffestional chipper/mulcher and I have chipped enough wood from non rotting trees to provide for bedding for the next 6 months which we started to lay after the steer went down. So the problem couldnt have been anything in the chips. The chips have now made it at least a 100% easier to clean out the barn and provide better sanitation. I spent 3 hours in the barn with shovel and pitchfork and dug down through all the layers of dirty hay and soaked earth and cleaned it out. Layed the rubber mats and put in the new feed trough.
The symptoms of the steer are unusal for my parnents since theve been sick before... distinctive like diahrea and so forth but this is not...here they are.
Calf wont get up/to weak to stand
Has no fever
No runny nose
Its fecal matter is perfectly fine no diahrea or blood in it
It will eat hay and feed if we place it up front of it
We have been providing water through a calf bottle
No uncordinated movement
No soars
No convulsions
Has been down for 3 days as of this post
Other calfs are healthy and not showing signs of sickness
We cant figure out what its sick with cause the only symptom is just to weak to stand. My mother has been a nurse for over 20 years and she may not be a vet but she has a general idea of what to look for and I do have enough sence to look for certain signs.
Im almost postive the calf became sick from contamination thats why explained what all ive done to prevent new occurences.
The other reason why im asking for help is because my parents dont want to load the steer up with antibiotics because they want to raise them as organic as possible. Unfortuanly my mother has given up on the calf, but me and my father think he has a chance if we can solve the problem. If antibiotics is the solution to keeping the calf alive I will go out my self and buy it for the calf even though they dont want me to spend any more of my money on the farm. I dont want to sound like im talking bad about my parnets.... they are both amazing people just times are hard and they are getting old and its basically depressed them. Im glad I just got home from the army to help them out and raise their spirits. I look forward for some answers and questions because I need some help
Thank you
I look forward for some answers so I can fix the problem.
Well I was born and raised in Elkhart,IN graduated from Concord High School and moved out on my own by 18. Joined the United States Army Active Duty by a month before turning 23 in 2007 ,and served 4 years active and completed 1 tour in Afghanistan from March 2010-March 2011 and now im IRR (inactive ready reserve) for my remander of 4 more years. I havnt got a job lined up yet so Im living with my parents in lower Michigan area, but putting full days of work on their farm/property. Any other questions about myself just ask :)
My parents have 6 steer calfs breeds are 4 holstien and 2 Normandy.
The sick calf is a holstien
They have 15 acres of propery.
They have about a 2 acres pasture for grazing but most of their food is supplemented by a little feed grain but mostly hay.
Hay consists of 50% alfalfa 50% timothy hay.
Their barn isnt very large so the area where the steer eat and like to come in and sleep is limited so that increases risk of dieases by contamination due to droppings. I went out and bought some more rubber mats for them and layed em and built an elevated feeding trough to keep their hay from getting conaminated by their own waste. (Cow was down before all this). Sanitation was an issue i dont blame my parents to hard for it cause they work full time at irregular times so cleaning was an issue. They were using their own feeding hay as bedding which im sure was not a good idea because they steer might eat it. I fixed that solution by buying a proffestional chipper/mulcher and I have chipped enough wood from non rotting trees to provide for bedding for the next 6 months which we started to lay after the steer went down. So the problem couldnt have been anything in the chips. The chips have now made it at least a 100% easier to clean out the barn and provide better sanitation. I spent 3 hours in the barn with shovel and pitchfork and dug down through all the layers of dirty hay and soaked earth and cleaned it out. Layed the rubber mats and put in the new feed trough.
The symptoms of the steer are unusal for my parnents since theve been sick before... distinctive like diahrea and so forth but this is not...here they are.
Calf wont get up/to weak to stand
Has no fever
No runny nose
Its fecal matter is perfectly fine no diahrea or blood in it
It will eat hay and feed if we place it up front of it
We have been providing water through a calf bottle
No uncordinated movement
No soars
No convulsions
Has been down for 3 days as of this post
Other calfs are healthy and not showing signs of sickness
We cant figure out what its sick with cause the only symptom is just to weak to stand. My mother has been a nurse for over 20 years and she may not be a vet but she has a general idea of what to look for and I do have enough sence to look for certain signs.
Im almost postive the calf became sick from contamination thats why explained what all ive done to prevent new occurences.
The other reason why im asking for help is because my parents dont want to load the steer up with antibiotics because they want to raise them as organic as possible. Unfortuanly my mother has given up on the calf, but me and my father think he has a chance if we can solve the problem. If antibiotics is the solution to keeping the calf alive I will go out my self and buy it for the calf even though they dont want me to spend any more of my money on the farm. I dont want to sound like im talking bad about my parnets.... they are both amazing people just times are hard and they are getting old and its basically depressed them. Im glad I just got home from the army to help them out and raise their spirits. I look forward for some answers and questions because I need some help
Thank you
I look forward for some answers so I can fix the problem.
