Sorry if this is a little disjointed, but here goes. My wife was reading an article off of her facebook feed about foal performance after assisted birth or C-section. My selective hearing tuned in on key parts of the conversation. Basically they have been researching horses, and they found out that at birth, they need significant pressure to turn off and on neurotransmitters. It would seem that in-utero fetuses are under the effects of "brain chemicals" that act as depressants and keep them from trying to run around in there. Pressure in the birth canal for certain durations cause these chemicals to get turned off. The idea is that with assisted births, they sometimes get pulled out too quickly and with C-sections of course, they don't even pass through the birth canal, so they are still "in sleep mode". This causes lethargic newborns that don't want to nurse, stand up, and so-on.
This reminds me of a lot of calves I have dealt with through the years, some pulled, some that got cold, some that had other problems. You know the ones, they don't want to stand up, you put the nipple in their mouth and they don't suck, real pains in the arse. Some of them just roll their eyes back in their head and try to push back at any resistence you put on them. Not chilled, not starved, just seemingly mentally deficient.
I found a way to deal with these, quite by accident. years ago. I was dealing with sheep, I had an old ewe that had one lamb she was owning, and another that was kind of dumb acting and she didn't want anything to do with it. I caught her and put her in the barn and was trying to get the bum lamb to suck, pinning the ewe against the wall and trying to get him on the teat. He just wanted to fight and spit the teat and suck anything but the teat. I got tired of trying to fight with them so I turned loose and the lamb flopped over in front of the ewe and she rammed him against the wall, I thought he was a goner. He stood up immediately and started going for the ewe. She bunched up to hit him again and I grabbed her, and he went over and latched on and sucked until his sides stuck out and he laid down. Had to do some convincing on the ewe, but the lamb did good from that point on. Here is the part where I'm going to get flamed. Ever since seeing how that happened, when I get a lamb or a calf that is acting retarded when trying to get it to suck, first I make sure that it is not chilled or dehydrated or already full, but if it has no reason not to suck, and after a reasonable amount of time trying to get it to, I pick it up, not real high, and drop it, and then try again. Many times this has been successful, I always thought of it as the reset button. Sounds bad, but seeing them fall out of a cow, they are designed to withstand it. When my wife read the article to me it kind of reminded me of this phenomenon, kind of makes sense that there are certain triggers that affect the brain of an organism that has been more or less dormant for most of it's existence. If anyone is interested I'll try to find the article.
This reminds me of a lot of calves I have dealt with through the years, some pulled, some that got cold, some that had other problems. You know the ones, they don't want to stand up, you put the nipple in their mouth and they don't suck, real pains in the arse. Some of them just roll their eyes back in their head and try to push back at any resistence you put on them. Not chilled, not starved, just seemingly mentally deficient.
I found a way to deal with these, quite by accident. years ago. I was dealing with sheep, I had an old ewe that had one lamb she was owning, and another that was kind of dumb acting and she didn't want anything to do with it. I caught her and put her in the barn and was trying to get the bum lamb to suck, pinning the ewe against the wall and trying to get him on the teat. He just wanted to fight and spit the teat and suck anything but the teat. I got tired of trying to fight with them so I turned loose and the lamb flopped over in front of the ewe and she rammed him against the wall, I thought he was a goner. He stood up immediately and started going for the ewe. She bunched up to hit him again and I grabbed her, and he went over and latched on and sucked until his sides stuck out and he laid down. Had to do some convincing on the ewe, but the lamb did good from that point on. Here is the part where I'm going to get flamed. Ever since seeing how that happened, when I get a lamb or a calf that is acting retarded when trying to get it to suck, first I make sure that it is not chilled or dehydrated or already full, but if it has no reason not to suck, and after a reasonable amount of time trying to get it to, I pick it up, not real high, and drop it, and then try again. Many times this has been successful, I always thought of it as the reset button. Sounds bad, but seeing them fall out of a cow, they are designed to withstand it. When my wife read the article to me it kind of reminded me of this phenomenon, kind of makes sense that there are certain triggers that affect the brain of an organism that has been more or less dormant for most of it's existence. If anyone is interested I'll try to find the article.
never thought of it that way.
