Bez+":2f5g0gns said:
backhoeboogie":2f5g0gns said:
There's no telling how many hundreds we have raised going back to my earliest childhood, nearly 50 years ago. Each year I graft several to my nurse cows too. I have NEVER lost one. People are going to come on here crying BS so let me say it again, I HAVE NEVER LOST A BOTTLE OR GRAFTED CALF.
Well, you would be the only person I have ever heard say this - so I would suggest I am all ears.
If any other long term person can make this brag I want to hear from them as well.
Send us your secrets
Bez+
Generally speaking Bez, do no more than 12 at a time and group them by size. Keep everything clean etc etc. There's nothing I can tell in your this regard that you don't already know. Its best not to buy them from the sale barn because they have been exposed to everything etc. etc.
Lately I have been buying split calves off of pairs and grafting to my nurse cow and these calves are already on their way. The last two were 115 lbs so it is not fair to use them as examples. They have had natural colostrums. So I will describe my worst case ever. Each one is a unique situation. I treat them that way.
My neighbor with the problem fence jumping angus bull is how it started. His bull got in to my heifer pasture and bred some. One was 6 1/2 months old when bred as best I can figure. 3 months after that her health began to degrade and I suspect hardware poison. She was way too small to calve when the time came.
I got the call while I was working 12 hour shifts refueling a nuke unit. Brother-in-law decided to pull the calf and told me it was dead. I got there an hour later. The calf's nose was dry and the heifer (now cow) was down and there was no getting her up. The calf was not dead. It just looked like it.
I hauled the calf to my house 22 miles away in the back seat of the truck. Every one was telling me it would not make it. I stopped at the feed store enroute home and picked up some replacer, just in case. It was pouring rain and cold so I took it in the house and laid it on feed sacks at the back hall entry. I took colostrums out of the freezer and began thawing it in hot water in the kitchen sink. (never microwave it) I held the calf on his feet between my legs and force fed him about a pint. His neck and chin was held up and I mechanically moved his jaw with my left hand to get that pint down him.
I then took a towel and began to vigorously clean him up. It was pretty much like a rough massage. The heifer/cow had not stood to clean him. Massaging a calf like that stimulates them pretty much the same way they are stimulated when the dam cleans them. You'fe seen it over and over Bez. Just imitate what the cow does. After cleaning him up and massaging the dickens out of him, he took two more pints of colostrum. At that point I no longer decided he was a goner.
He got a vigorous massage and couple of pints of colostrum about 6 hours later.
The next a.m. I moved a stock trailer into the drive and tarped it because ice was coming down. He went into the trailer with old hay placed on the floor for bedding. I started him on milk replacer and the rest is history.
My guess is not many folks would have given that calf a bit of hope when they initially saw it. I did not have much hope myself.
Sheer determination to save one does it for me. The towel massage thing helps too. Good meds, good feed, good replacer, natural surplus colostrum from a nurse cow, clean pens, close attention, and immediate treatment for any thing you find that ails them.
I can tell other unique stories about other calves.