Sick Calves

[RVF]

On March 27 I had a calf flat out and dehydrated. Gave him Electolytes twice. On March 28 he was too weak to stand so we tubed him with milk replacer twice. He has got his strength back, but will not nurse so we are milking the cow now and tubing him. Today, March 29, another calf is weak, but not dehydrated. We gave him milk replacer this morning. Both these calves were born on March 19th. Both calves had dry rear ends when found. and neither have shown any sign of scours. To me it looks like they just quit eating. Does anyone have any ideas what I am dealing with? :help:

Thanks in advance

 

[milkmaid]

Just because you don't see them scouring doesn't mean they don't have some aggressive internal pathogen that makes them extremely uninterested in eating. You've seen the calves that have everything coming out the back end as fast as it goes in the front, and yet they still run, play, and act perfectly normal. Well... the opposite can happen too, and it's all the more dangerous because you don't notice scours, you just have dead or dehydrated calves.

 

[Alice]

When my baby calves got uninterested in their bottles (even a little bit) and/or appeared weak and lethargic (even a little bit) and/or didn't finish a bottle or just chewed on the nipple instead of sucking on it, I always assumed they were scoured/dehydrated, whether I found evidence of it or not...and they got electrolytes. And, I didn't wait until the next feeding to see if they'd perked up, most especially in the summertime. Once I got the electrolytes in them, then I watched and waited and listened and stared and stressed trying to decide what to do next, but that was always after the electrolytes.

Alice