Calf 10 -90's

I had another calf born early yesterday afternoon.  Another bull calf.  A big calf.   But I almost lost this calf.  It snowed much of April 1 and the temperatures in the afternoon was 25 to 28 degrees.  Plus wind. More January weather on April 1.

The following photo was taken on the afternoon of March 31.  April 1 had more snow.

I found the calf at 4 pm.  I hadn't checked on the cows since noon.  The calf was laying stretched out on the snow with his mother standing over him mooing and all concerned.  The calf could barely move.  It was freezing to death.

I go the calf into the house and called Donna for help.  I do not have a bathtub, only a shower. When Donna arrived we put the calf in the shower and ran warm water on him.  I slowed the drain so the calf would also lay in warm water. After a long time we got the calf out of the shower and I pulled it to lay on a rug in front of the wood stove.  We dried off the calf and massaged it with towels to get activity from it.

It was almost 7 pm when we decided to give the calf some milk supplement to drink.  Then we were going to go outside and see if we could milk the mother cow.  We had to tube the liquid to get into the calf's stomach as it was too weak to suck.

We got the cow into the loading ramp and its head into the head gate so she couldn't move. She could still kick though if she wanted.  I haven't learned how milk a cow so I couldn't get any milk to come out of the cow's udder.  Donna can easily milk a cow as she had learned and done it when growing up and quickly got milk to come out.  I put a board in the fence panels to try to limit how the cow could kick.  If the cow really wanted to lift her leg high she could get it over the board, but she didn't do that too often.

The amount of milk Donna got from the cow.

Before going outside to milk the mother cow I moved the calf away from the wood stove.  When we got back into the house the calf was laying strangely.  He wanted to arch his head back as far as he could.  When we moved the head back down he would move it back up.  Occasionally he would move his legs.  He was breathing fast and his heartbeat was fast.  Even though he was warm his back half was shivering.

He was not normal.   It was like he had suffered a brain injury due to a lack of oxygen from almost dying.  I imagine if I found the calf less than up to a half hour later it would have been dead.  Or the calf was having a seizure.    I called the vet and she had no idea why the calf would arch his head so severely.  I called Chris who has 70 cows.  Once he had a calf kind of like this and the vet (who is now retired) took the calf and cared for it and a day and a half later the calf returned to normal.  No idea why his calf was that way for a while.  I called Joyce and their family never had a calf like this.

The only thing to do was wait and see if the calf recovered and survived.

Here is a 1:13 minute video of the calf spasming: https://youtu.be/xt43Vdnu_hM


Around 11 pm Donna came back and we tubed the calf to give it some of his mother's milk.  Once he got his mother's milk he stopped arching his head and moving his legs.  He laid quietly and was now recovering.   It was only now that I realized that I hadn't given the calf a milk supplement.  I had given him an electrolyte supplement.  I had this supplement back when I had the calf who had scours and was dehydrating.  Well.. this electrolyte mixture overwhelmed my calf as he hadn't had any milk yet.  Once he had some milk he started to slowly recover.

A little after 4 am the calf tried to stand up.  The sound of his hooves on the plastic tarp woke me up.  Donna came over and we gave the calf the rest of his mother's milk.  Then I moved the calf to the entryway.  This way he couldn't hurt himself standing up or damage anything else.

Almost 9 am and I took the calf out to the corral to reunite him with his mother.  I wondered after being apart for so long, and having the scent of humans on the calf, if the mother would accept or reject the calf.  The mother immediately accepted the calf.  (She wasn't too keen on me though for taking her calf all this time.)

The calf stood up and after a few tries figured out how to suck from his mother's udder.  For the day I put up corral panels around the barn's roofed area so it would be only those two together and they could bond and be in a warm place.  The low temperature the past night was 16 degrees.  January temperatures.  And I put some hay in the area for the cow to eat.

The cow and calf are doing well.  Late afternoon I removed the panels so the cow then could eat all the hay she wanted from the bale in the corral. Mother and calf bonded really well.  I took the following photos early evening shortly before sunset.

What an adventure and what a night.  But it was worth it as the calf was saved.  Without Donna's help I don't think I would have saved the calf.