Re: For better or for worse...

Posted by Bruce from Can. on January 31, 2018 at 16:46:40 from (76.69.31.140):

In Reply to: For better or for worse... posted by Tracto-man on January 31, 2018 at 13:42:49:

We all want to help, and all advice that you will have offered will come from folks just like me , with good intentions. I am only going to offer the broadest advice. Every thing related to raising a bottle fed calf goes to stresses upon the calf. And I don't mean he is worried about retirement funds, or whether his girl friend is cheating on him, lol. Your calves stresses will be physical and environmental. He will express his stress to you in only a few ways, and you need to be able to recognize them. Scouring can be the result from a infection, like the Rota Corona virus, this won't be much risk unless you bring in another calf from a different farm or sales barn. Calves will scour if fed too much milk , they can start to scour in really cold conditions when they cannot take in enough calories to live. So scouring can be caused by many things and is as much a sign of stress as it is a illness. At first sign of scouring I will get some powdered Elctrolytes from the Vet, and mix it with warm water. Very important to keep a scouring from becoming dehydrated. If you want to check your calf for hydration , simply pinch some skin on it's back with your thumb and fore finger. The skin should go back down as it was before you pinched it right away in a normal healthy calf. If the skin you pinched stands up after you have let go, your calf is not retaining enough fluids, and is becoming dehydrated. Most people want to cut back on the calves intake of fluids if they are scouring, which is about the worst thing you could do.
A pen with deep straw bedding will keep your calf both warm and dry. And even if the top of the straw looks dry, after a few days just how dry is this pen ? Remember your baby calf is on a liquid diet, and will pass a lot of liquid that goes down through the straw out of sight, and the pen will appear clean. The trouble comes from the ammonia in the urine. While we can't see it , the baby is laying on this bedding , and if there is not real good air in the pen area, the ammonia will hurt their little lungs, and you will first see this as a snotty nose.
Telling you these things , I am not trying to scare you , only tell you the kinds of things guys like rrlund, phillip, coonie , or myself would be looking for , and checking every time we look in a calf pen. Watch the calves tail, a lot can be learned just from a glance at a calf tail, and never let manure to build up on a tail. Bruce

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