Sheep Colostrum for a calf?

[Ozhorse]

My first calving heifers are doing it tough and one had a calf today. The weather does not help as it has been snowing a little and is very windy. The calf is small, it tries to get up but I think it is too weak. Mother is upset about it and I think has been pushing it about a bit to try to get it up. It is possible it has been up and tried to suck but has not got much and is going downhill. The udder on the mother does not seem to have enough milk in it. I only found them going on dark. In a hurry I got a cup of warm milk and it sucked the bottle very easily, that surprised me. Problem is there is no one else about and I have to distract her with a bit of feed, and back off each time she turns around - or else she is going to grind me in the dirt.

If it is alive in the morning, and I can move it to where I can bottle feed it and her to where I can give her some hay I might be able to keep the pair of them going until it gets strong.

She has had her calf way up in a rocky hilltop and I would have to pick it up and carry it a hundred yards to the vehicle to move it home but I dont think she is going to let me do that.

If she does not have enough milk now is it possible she will milk better if I feed her?

I dont have cow colostrum. I do have 1 1/2 cups of sheep colostrum. Any point is using this?

 

[dun]

Don;t know if it will help but it can;t hurt. When using the store bought powdered colostrum out vet recommends horse colostrum replacer. I figure if a horse won;t hurt then sheep can;t be any worse.
Heifers hardly ever look like they have enough milk. But being a smallish calf it isn;t going to have as high a requirement in quantity. Feeding the cow may help, but being fresh for 4-5 days will usually also help
What kind of milk. Store bought is next to useless but it's better then nothing (but just barely)

 

[Ozhorse]

Thanks for your quick reply.
What do you mean by "being fresh for 4-5 days will usually also help" ?

I just grabbed some boxed UHT milk. The box milk was warm and wet and I figured that it was better than nothing when it was extremely windy and cold and the calf was still trying and it was 10 minutes to dark.

The sheep colostrum is fresh frozen.

 

[dun]

Thanks for your quick reply.
What do you mean by "being fresh for 4-5 days will usually also help" ?

I just grabbed some boxed UHT milk. The box milk was warm and wet and I figured that it was better than nothing when it was extremely windy and cold and the calf was still trying and it was 10 minutes to dark.

The sheep colostrum is fresh frozen.

Her production should gradually increase for the first couple of days after calving. If the calf doesn;t get to sucking the cow pretty quick you're going to need to find a source of a quality milk replacer, or raw whole cows milk

 

[Howdyjabo]

Need to get the colostrum in her in the first 8 hrs(after that the system changes and its not absorbed). I agree sheep colostrum is better than nothing.

 

[Lucky_P]

sheep colostrum probably OK - certainly a better shot than nothing.
There's a golden window of time when the 'pores' in the gut are open to allow absorption of those large molecular-weight antibodies; ideally, you want a good dose of colostrum in them in the first couple of hours, certainly within the first 8-10; absorption capability decreases pretty steadily after 12. By 24-48 hrs, absorption of colostral antibodies is pretty well shut down.

Haven't seen any recent studies (got any, milkmaid?) - but they suggested to us back in the '80s, that anything you gave that neonate, other than colostrum, would effectively shut down those absorption sites - so...preferrably, no milk, oral dextrose, oral electrolytes, whiskey, etc., during the first 24-48 hrs. They won't 'starve to death' in that time frame. If it's so cold that they are in danger of freezing, you need to get 'em into a warmer, barn, or some sort of shelter.

 

[Ozhorse]

I went out this morning and I cant find the calf where it was last night or even nearby so it seems that it has got on its feet. If it got on its feet then it probably got a drink. The first calving heifer is wandering about with the others but does not look very well.

I could get the dog out, which makes the cow nervous and then she goes and finds the calf for me, but if it is able to get up and walk it would be able to get a drink. In that case there would not be much point in me finding it. So I better not fix what is not broke.

Another heifer has had her first calf yesterday too, and all looks like happy young motherhood there. This one, it just seems not right, cow not right. Last night the calf was dry, very dry, I might guess it was many many hours since it was born, and it was not on its feet, even though it was very noisy and wanted to suck.

I cant find the placenta, she probably ate it. If she did she has a belly full of bushfire ash and burnt wood. She had it under trees where there had recently been a severe fire. On the other hand she could have a retained placenta.

How would I tell if she has a retained placenta?

I have on hand uterine pessaries and penicillin.

If I disturb her and find the calf and bring her back to the yards I can feed her, and give her penicillin (for no reason that is obvious to me at the moment) and give the calf an extra drink of inappropriate box milk. The yards are in the most exposed place on the property and neonate lambs and calves tend to die in those paddocks. I do not have a barn for cows.

Or I could save my time and effort, dont fix what may not be broken, and dont risk making a situation worse. And keep an eye on the cow to see if she gets worse?

 

[wbvs58]

I think I would let things be Ozhorse. More often than not they have things sorted and she probably has the calf bedded down somewhere.
Ken

 

[Ozhorse]

I took the dog with me this afternoon, but the cow/heifer was really not well enough to respond and look for the calf. She really has lost the plot and looks weak, too weak to bother looking for a calf.

So I spent quite some time looking all over the place for the calf. I felt like I was wasting time but I feel better if I find the carcass. I didnt really think it would have gone uphill into the big pile if rock but I went up there, after I looked all over elsewhere. Good thing I took the dog. There was a calf, and a placenta up in the pile of rocks, and the dog was looking down a wombat burrow nearby - there was another calf, the calf I saw last night, just its tail visible way down the wombat burrow.

I draged them out and carried them to the trailer, then took the mob of 12 heifers, including the other heifer with her new calf - to the yards.

OK - new situation - I have a first calving heifer, weak and in poor condition, with twins.

Plan was to get colostrum from the other heifer and give it to each of the twins. Not that the other heifer has much colostrum. I got both females, and all three calves in the yards. Left the sick mother with the twins together. I tried to milk the other heifer/cow but could hardly get anything. One of the twins is stronger, one weaker. I gave the weak twin about two cups of sheep colostrum (both calves take a bottle easily), so we shall see if it works, and gave every one lots of hay and sweet feed. The stronger of the twins is hassling for food. The weaker one is up and bothering mum a little, but is weaker.

The calves are now more like 36 hours old. Is there any point me separating the healthy cow/calf pair until I can get a full bag of milk to give to the twins? I dont have much experience milking cows so is it that she is just holding back or is it that her calf had just sucked her dry.

I am concerned I might loose the cow as she is very very slow moving. She is so depressed I can handle her like a pet cow (she is quiet but not handled). Could it be anaemia and blood loss? She is a bit off sweet feed but wants hay. Her eyes are sunken and she is very lethagic. She is not as protective of the calves as she was yesterday, I dont think she has enough energy to bother.

What might be wrong with the cow?
Would giving her antibiotics just in case do any harm? I have long acting penicillin.

Any other advice? For the cow? For the twins?

 

[Howdyjabo]

I would give the new mom some IV or SQ fluid and glucose. Have you got any CMPK?
A shot of Banamine would be good too.
Get some milk replacer for the calves.

 

[regolith]

Great that you found them, and alive.

It sounds like the other heifer has only enough milk for her own calf, best leave well alone.

Get the twins on powdered milk if you can get it, asap. You can tide them over on electrolytes for a day or so - the sugar gives them a bit of energy - but they need the milk to really get fit and grow.
On those symptoms your heifer needs a vet and/or antibiotics.
It *could* be that she has a uterine infection, in which case it takes a pretty high dose of penicillin to start with, if you don't have a vet who can see her I'd do that and if she responds well by the next day, drop back to a standard dose and extend the normal treatment length by a day or two.
She could also be lacking energy from carrying twins.
Shelter will certainly help, and as long as the calves are fit to get up and walk around they're better to stay with mum. Even some tarpaulin or iron nailed along your yard rails that they can lie behind.

 

[Nesikep]

Sounds like a rough time, I agree with Regolith... though before you give her the antibiotic, try and get her temperature... It's something I'm always forgetting to do.. If she does have a temp of over 38C, the antibiotics would probably be helpful...

I'm a bit confused about which cow is which... The first one sounded like she was going downhill, and then another one had twins, and she's going downhill too? or did the first one just have another calf?
If there's retained placenta, I'd say 2 days until a fever sets in (in cold weather) is pretty darned quick, and there may something else.

Calves are good at finding shelter... Put up a couple bales of hay with a piece of plywood on top, if possible with the open side toward the sun (if you get any).. and I usually put it just out of reach of the cows with a hot wire about 3' off the ground. They don't need fancy, they just need to be out of wind and rain.

 

[milkmaid]

If possible, you'd probably be best off having your vet out and paying him/her to teach you a little about cattle health and treatment. Way more stuff than I have the time to tackle in a post right now.

Lucky- I've heard the same thing regarding first contact with the intestines but don't believe I've seen it in a research study recently.

My best guess on the sheep colostrum is it wouldn't hurt (unlike the reverse) but the half-life of the antibodies would be reduced. The calf would be protected for a shorter period of time than if given cow colostrum. Sounds like it's a non-issue now however.