Making a calf suck!

[Nesikep]

OK, good to know... I kinda figured the quality of the remaining colostrum would be 'diluted'... She got some from an older cow as well, which is typically better stuff anyhow. I should actually make a habit of giving some colostrum from an older cow to any calf born from a first timer, if it's just a half quart.

Well, Tina is now sucking on any dangling teat she can find, and is going to become a master milk thief!. She's cute as a button too and getting really bouncy after the belly gets filled. She's got 3 mothers now, as the mother of the calf that has scours right now has extra and doesn't seem to mind either. Roma isn't going to let her forget who her real mother is though, she's always running after her

The little sick guy is still nursing a bit, he is certainly weak, especially in his hind legs, but doesn't have scours anymore. He does feel a little warm, and I'm giving him about 2-3 L a day of electrolytes, especially in the daytime when the sun is out, and I get him up and moving around a bit

 

[JWBrahman]

Sometimes, with heifer's first calf, it's a fault of both momma and calf---neither one seems to know what to do at first.
Does the momma even try to nose the calf around to her udder?
Only one I ever had that had trouble, I put both in a little stall arrangement, & I managed to squeeze/squirt some milk right out of a teat onto the calf's nose and mouth and once she licked it off, she found the teat pretty fast afterwards on her own.

That always worked for us, it was the very first thing my grandfather ever showed me as a child. They had a section of cattle chute where you could tie the rear legs and remove the bottom side boards so the cow wouldn't accidentally kick the calf while we held it and squeezed right into its mouth.

 

[Nesikep]

We have a similar arrangement with our headgate. I only need it of uncooperative cows (Remember that old cow with the HUGE udder? yea, her). Roma would stand still as a statue if you did anything with her teats. This calf just didn't want to suck.

I made her drink by using a nipple with a pretty large hole, and putting it in her mouth from one side, and my free hand's index finger in the othe side and fiddled with her tongue which would make her swallow.