Cattle Rack Rancher
Well-known member
Well, I'm stumped this morning, boys. Saturday, I looked out and saw one of my heifers stretched out on its side trying to calve. Went and checked it and saw back feet coming out. Tried to separate her out and watched her go through three cross fences trying to get to the rest of the cows. Fence seemed to be working fairly well as you could see the current shooting through her. Finally, gathered up all the cows and brought them up and got her separated out. Put on the chains and prepared to pull what I figured by then would be a dead calf. To my surprise he was struggling for breath so I hung him up and drained the fluid out of his lungs. Waited a couple of hours and he was making no movements to get up so I fed him some colostrum. He seems alert, got a bit of white in one eye but besides that looks normal. Decent sucking reflex. It seems when I pick him up that he could stand but he almost seems to be trying to dive for the ground. Its only been two days but I don't hold out much hope. It doesn't cost me much in time to feed him twice a day but I'm not going to spend alot of time on it if he's never going to walk. I'm going to try giving him some electrolytes and a shot of selenium tonight. Any body with experience had any success with this sort of thing. Remember, I got two kids 6 and 9, watching me. A lead pipe and a shovel probably won't work.