Nursing calve

[cajunman]

I have a calves that was born 3-31-08, She is nursing on the two back nipples and not the front. The two front are sticking out and are purple. They are swollen a little. Sould I try miking her ? She is an older cow but, a good momma.

Any help ?
Thanks, Louisiana

 

[TexasBred]

It certainly won't hurt anything to put her in the chute and milk those front quarter out...will take some of the pressure off and reduce chances of mastitis developing and give the calf the opportunity to nurse from them. He probably will get to them in a few days but being not quite so full and stiff will make it a bit easier.

 

[cajunman]

Thanks , I will do that today.

 

[bandit80]

Sometimes it just takes a few days for a calf to figure out there are 4 of them.

You saying she is an older cow, leads me to think she has probably raised many calves. A cows nipples will normally get a little longer and a little bigger around as she ages. If the front nipples are much bigger than the back two, it is probably a matter of the calf getting easier access to the rear nipples. When he gets a few days older, he will be able to latch on to the fronts.

If the cow has a good udder, it is probably the first. If the cow does not have a good udder, it is probably the second.

 

[dun]

The purple part is what concerns me. If she is that gorged with milk she may not want to let the calf suck those teats as they may be pretty sore/tender. Milkingsome of the excess out, insuring there isn;t anything wrong with the milk in them, is not a bad idea. Calves for some reason typically only suck on one pair for the first couple of days. As their appetite increases they'll start working on the others, IF the cow will let them. Our calves are generally left siders. They'll work over the left side thorouhgly for a couple of days before they check around and find out there are more on the other side. This year we have on that is strictly a rear end nurser. Even when he sucks the front 2 he still goes in from behind. You can imagine what his head looks like. That's the one good thing about all the rain, it keeps his head fairly clean.

 

[Limomike]

We just had the same thing happen to one of our cows about a week ago. She had a really good calf, and it only sucked on the last two for about 3-4 days. Those front two nipples got huge, but he finally figured out there was milk in them and went to town on em. That calf is getting to all four of them now.