Mr puke guts the calf

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greggy

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Hi All,

Yesterday was a bit strange, and could not post about it.

I have a batch of bottle calves that have been weaned off milk for more than a month.

Been feeding a mix of things, including high protein feeds like pellets, anyways, I do not give hay ad lib, and I give a bit of oaten, wheaten and barley , and sometimes some lucerne, anyways...

Been increasing the wheaten, and it is pretty full on, full of leaf and seed, not large seed, anyways...was about to feed the bunch some pellets, and the smallest bull calf comes running up, buat as he was, he was puking up, yellow in colour, made no diff to him, he wanted in on the pellets as usual.

I noticed he had some bloat, he is only about 70-80k, or say 200lbs atm, they had finished a load of wheaten hay just an hr earlier or so, I fed the others, locked him by himself for 2 hrs, came back for last round of feed, and bloat was gone and he was really wanting to eat, so let him out and fed them all with a mix of apple and various hays chaffed.

Had a look around today, his puke was yellowish with lots of fine fibres in it, pretty much broken down.

Maybe he had too much wheaten hay just prior, he does tuck into it, and, as he is smallest, that prob does not help (he has stayed proportionally smaller since day 1)

Anyways, tonight they are all normal again, like, when we getting our feed ?

Maybe i dodged a bullet by noticing the bloat and pulling him out, quite odd to see a hungry, non lethargic animal puking as they come to fight for more feed.....being sick usually means a bit off the feed ?

I may pull him and anything small and put into the group below, he will be ok, as never wanted milk apart from small amounts in bucket, so he wont be robbing those on milk still.

What are your thoughts ?
 
Sounds like the calf is not getting his share being amoung bigger calves and is eating too much too fast. Wheaten hay can cause frothy bloat, that's possibly the case here.

Would seperate him so he can get his fill.
 
Yeah, I wont be letting any of them just ad lib on a whole bale....they all like too eat prob because it is controlled.

He is right in there, does not hold back, and cause is a few inches shorter, comes in under them, but, he is usually one of the first at any trough or sign of feed.

I was thinking, maybe being smaller, by maybe 50lbs, that his developing rumen is much smaller, and may be more sensitive to anything that may bloat, he may also have swallowed a chunk or two.

I have oaten hay as well in much smaller amount, barley hay, I try and give them some of both, but without chaffing it, this allows them to maybe give a preference.

Maybe the answer is, for now, to feed more often but less, I have been giving a full barrow of wheaten twice a day too 9 calves at the 200 to 250lb range at a guess, plus all the other feed, the barrow would have a decent percentage of barley. What I might do for now is give it all separate, smaller amounts, and more often, I go past the group many times, so can do that, I may also widen the feed area. When the smaller calves on milk have time to settle and get used to my routine & the ringworm in th e other mob is no longer visible, I may put him in with them, they are more docile natured, as is he, but he will then be the significantly larger calf in that group of 3. Probably less of a concern if only 3.

PS he was fine again yesterday after all feedings, so this has only happened once, puking when I have seen sheep do it, usually ends up with a poor result soon after, it was that and the bloated look that had me really worried for him for that couple of hrs, it was a ....oh no....here we go moment....
 

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