Nine days in on a dumb sucker

[gizmom]

M-5 made the same suggestion I was going to make, get him sucking your finger then lead his head into the bucket once he gets a taste he should start drinking out of the bucket.
gizmom

 

[Bigfoot]

This thing is just special I guess nothing mentioned has worked. I think today is 3 full weeks.

 

[Workinonit Farm]

This thing is just special I guess nothing mentioned has worked. I think today is 3 full weeks.

Good grief! At this point, he should no longer be considered a "dumb sucker" but more like and idiot.

I hope he comes around at some point. Who knows, maybe tomorrow you'll wake up to find that his brain woke up and got with the program.

 

[Chappydog]

If he is still sucking your finger try taping a small tube to your finger and have it ran into a bucket. This way he sucks and gets milk. Maybe that will make the light go off.


We had to do this with my first girl to get her to going good.

 

[Bigfoot]

After a little over 4 weeks of taking care of the thing, it was dead this evening. Had been very energetic, and actually hard to catch in a 12 x 12 stall. He seemed not himself this morning, but not bad enough to warrant any antibiotics. Kids called a few minutes ago, and said it had passed away. Lessons learned I guess.

 

[highgrit]

That's not the way it's supposed to work. Dang it.

 

[Bigfoot]

Lone of my first lessons with cattle was, if your gonna have em, your gonna lose em.

 

[Workinonit Farm]

Sorry to hear that. After all that time and energy, even if he wasn't the brightest bulb in the box, I wish he hadn't died.

Clearly something wasn't right in other ways as well.

 

[Putangitangi]

What was the calf's birth story? Do you think it had something fundamentally wrong from the start? Obviously pretty wrong if it would never suck, but something more, maybe?

Very frustrating for you, but good on you for giving it the best shot.

 

[branguscowgirl]

You gave it a good try BF. Sorry that you lost him. I have sure learned, when you have to work that hard to keep something alive, they usually have multiple unseen issues.

 

[Bigfoot]

Just a normal delivery I guess. I had her down to calve, and she did. Kept watching her bag like I always do, and I didn't think it had sucked. Gave it colustrum in the field, and kept a watch still no sucking. Brought it to the house, and it just never would suck. Finally wore out my calf feeder on it, a couple of days ago. The bag, not the part you stick down em. Bought 2 after that, I just didn't like them as much. Seemed hard on the calf. The other didn't seem to cause him any stress. I guess I should have done something this morning. Hind sight is always 20/20 though. By my thinking, it just was t warnted. Nose was wet, mouth was warm, it was just a little "off". If you saw the calf, you'd never think a thing was wrong with it. Run, jumped, kicked, the whole nine yards. When he went down, he went fast.

I just never saw anything to beat it. Calf could drink water out of a bucket, and did. Calf would eat grain, if you put it in his mouth. I guess it could swallow, it just was not going to suck. I'll put this one in my things I'll never forget column, and hope for brighter days.

 

[kucala5]

That's a tough loss. There's brighter days to come.

 

[fenceman]

Real sorry you lost it Bigfoot sounds like you fought a good fight. :tiphat: . Back when we raised a lot of sheep(everyone go ahead and call me goatherder , I ain't scared) we would have a couple hundred lambs at a time. I made the observation that most often a rejected lamb or one tha t wouldn't nurse and bond correctly would eventually die. It wouldn't matter what I did they would do ok for a bit, then wilt and die. It's almost as if the ewe could tell the lamb was defective in some way.
I bottle raised hundreds of lambs for various reasons, but sometimes it seems their just defective and nothing you do will save them.

 

[Nesikep]

I guess he gets a darwin award.

sorry to hear it though, you really went above and beyond with it, I don't know if I'd have that kind of patience!

RIP little dummy!