Sick Calf ASAP Please

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I will ask her about Both of those, thank you for the suggestion! He's better than yesterday! He drank his bottle down without stopping and I had to put him back in his pen, because he followed me out. He mooed at me after he finished his milk. He still sounds congested but he doesn't have a fever and his nose isn't all snotty like yesterday. If I remember to I will get a picture of him when I feed him again. We got just over 2 inches of rain overnight, but thankfully he stayed in his hut and kept his blanket on.
Great news!
I picked up from some of your earlier posts that you might be a little hard on yourself? I tend to do that too, so I know how it is. But It's obvious you care a great deal for your livestock. I finally realized I will never get to the point where I make 100% perfect decisions. We do the very best we can, bank the victories, and charge off the rest up to life's "tuition." Good luck with the little guy!
 
i would also try a shot of dexamethazone as well. The anti anti-inflammatory steroidal effect is good and the dextrose certainly won't hurt it.
 
You are not going to hurt by giving multiple injections of Draxxin. I had one calf that I had to give Draxxin every other day because giving one injection would only last for 36 hours before the temperature spiked again. More importantly, when you give Banamine, also give meloxicam. The Banamine will work immediately and the meloxicam will take a day to really kick in. You give them meloxicam at a loading dose (1mg/kg) the first day, and then give it every second or third day after that at half the loading those. It's oral, it's cheap, it's safe, and it works. You can crush up the tablet and mix it with a little Karo syrup and then give it orally through a syringe that you've cut the top off of.
 
I know you said in your post that the calf got colostrum. do you know if it was from nursing on the cow or a colostrum supplement? if he just nursed on the cow, their are several reasons why the cow may not have good colostrum to protect the calf from health problems. if he pulled the calf because cow was not suppling enough milk, that would be my first concern. If that is the case, no amount of treatment will reverse your problem. hopefully that is not the case. my vet has taken blood sample of calves in the past to determine the level of colostrum protection, but I do not know if their is a time frame for that test. hope all works out well for you and the calf.
 
Great news!
I picked up from some of your earlier posts that you might be a little hard on yourself? I tend to do that too, so I know how it is. But It's obvious you care a great deal for your livestock. I finally realized I will never get to the point where I make 100% perfect decisions. We do the very best we can, bank the victories, and charge off the rest up to life's "tuition." Good luck with the little guy!
Yes I am hard on myself, .. Thank you for the reminder, that our best is the most we can do...
 
I'm glad to hear that you gave multiple injections without it hurting the calf.

In reply to the clostrum question he got his mother's clostrum the guy said he made sure of that. Yes I'm concerned About the quality of the clostrum, ... He was a week old when I got him. Hopefully it will be good enough for him.
 
Ok thank you for the info. I don't have any dex on hand anyway. That's good to know. I wasn't aware that it suppressed the immune system.
 
Oh he drinks his bottle down in a hurry! Yesterday the temperature here went from 49 at 5:20 to 20 degrees at 1:00 in the afternoon.... It was really windy. The calf sounded better last night. But this morning he is more rattly sounding. .. This weather isn't helping... Wish there was more I could do for the little guy. I'm giving him probiotics his poo has returned to normal! He has a foot of straw under him and 2 foot up around 3 sides of him, he looks like he's laying in a cozy nest lol he gets milk 3 times a day.
 
Oh he drinks his bottle down in a hurry! Yesterday the temperature here went from 49 at 5:20 to 20 degrees at 1:00 in the afternoon.... It was really windy. The calf sounded better last night. But this morning he is more rattly sounding. .. This weather isn't helping... Wish there was more I could do for the little guy. I'm giving him probiotics his poo has returned to normal! He has a foot of straw under him and 2 foot up around 3 sides of him, he looks like he's laying in a cozy nest lol he gets milk 3 times a day.
If you hold your bottle upside down, does milk run out? If so, time for a new nipple. Nipples modified with pocket knives to feed faster will cause aspiration pneumonia.
 
Keep up the good work. Couple years ago I took an abandoned twin bull calf from one of our neighbors to foster on our milk cow, since the neighbor didn't want to bottle feed, and he got really sick a day or two after he got here. He was only two or three days old, poor little guy. The neighbor said he wasn't sure if he got colostrum or not, and totally expected him to die, but I did what I could for him and he pulled through.

All I had was penicillin, so he got that every day for about two weeks, and was kept inside the barn except on sunny afternoons. He got all the milk he could drink from the cow, and eventually he shook off the crud he had, but man, it took a long time. A month, at least. I would have given him something better than penicillin, but he wasn't my calf, and the owner didn't want to spend money on expensive drugs for a calf he was convinced would die. So he got what I had, because frankly, I didn't want to spend $400 on a calf that wasn't mine.

Anyway, after all the penicillin, I gave him lots of probiotics, and Vitamin ADE paste, to help him along. Sometimes, especially at the beginning, I could hear his rattly breathing even before I got to the barn. But he slowly got better, and went back home several months later, healthy and frisky. He sometimes coughed after a run, so I'm sure he had some permanent (or at least long-lasting) damage to his lungs, but other than that slight cough after exertion, you'd never know he'd been sick. His owner was amazed he made it, but it was just because I had the time to spend tending to him, and I hate to see babies die, so I tried as hard as I could.

It was ironic that I spent so much time and effort to make him well so he could be beefed, but it was another lesson in the Veterinary School of Hard Knocks for me, so it wasn't a wasted effort. I got some experience, and the neighbor got to send the calf for beef eventually.

As long as your calf is perky and finishing his bottle, he's got a good chance. Hopefully he'll make a full recovery, too.

I also hope I'm not speaking out of turn here, because I'm NOT a "cattleman" like most of you, but I did have that one really sick calf, and this one sounds very similar, so I thought I'd post this as encouragement. :)
 
Thank you for the encouragement! And for taking the time to write all of that down about your calf.
 
I talked to my vet and she said to give him the single dose treatment of Baytril for the rattle in his lungs.
 
Thought I'd update tonight. I started using the new nipple on his bottle at his midday feeding, it took him twice as long to drink his bottle. (Which is a good thing!) Tonight he sounded a little better than this morning. He doesn't wag his tail yet when he's drinking his bottle. He also doesn't run around yet. But today he was out of his hut twice, when it wasn't feeding time. Which he hasn't done until today since I got him.
 
If you hold your bottle upside down, does milk run out? If so, time for a new nipple. Nipples modified with pocket knives to feed faster will cause aspiration pneumonia.
Sometimes we forget the little things. I used to open all the new nipples up as I got em. This last one, there was no need. Yep! Slowed him down a lil and no raspy breathing or cough!

Thanks for the reminder.
 

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