Calf Bloat Update

Welcome To Wilmoth Farms posted on her blog some tips and a link in my comments about Angus' bloat and I am sorry that I haven't left you a comment, well actually I tried but it just wouldn't work.

I am so happy that you got DSL, some of us are going to be on Dial-up forever it seems.

Angus hasn't had another episode of bloat, just those three times, I doctored him like I would a goat with bloat which was baking soda, veg. oil and bouncing his belly.

I talked to a neighbor who raises around a 100 bottle calves a year and he said that he has a chronic bloating calf right now that he put a plastic valve in. He said that she was the first chronic bloater that he has ever had. He has only had to tube a few on rare occasions in the past.

I am not sure what caused this in Angus but he is over it now, he may have just gotten too much green grass because we were in the process of weaning him. He may have gotten into the goat mineral also.

I am not too happy with him, he nearly killed me yesterday trying to get me to give him a bottle. He is too big to punch and butt me. I couldn't get away from him, he kept circling me and spinning me around. I got so tired and dizzy that I thought that I would go down.

I am on foal watch with Jetta right now, she is waxed and ready to go. I set up with her last night and hopefully she will go early this evening or early tonight.

Calf Bloat

Angus is now 12 weeks old, he looks really good and has been very healthy but yesterday evening he developed bloat. I gave him baking soda and a little veg. oil. My DH bounced his belly around until we got some good burps.

I checked on him at around 2:00 am and he was bloated again, went through the same process plus gave him yogurt and he responded well again.

I just went out and he looks bloated again. Any ideas what I can do and what we are doing wrong to cause this??

My DH is still giving him a bottle once per day just to get rid of the replacer that we have. He has free choice calf starter, calf manna, hay, grass and water.

The Flu Bug

We have taken on a few extra responsibilities over the last several days and that has kept us almost totally offline. We had a terrible windstorm that forced me to keep the computer shut down because of the instability of the electricity, it kept flickering but never went completely out.

Then what was suppose to be a sleep-over for our three Granddaughters turned into a round the clock vigil, when two of them came down with the flu. My DH was puked upon twice and I would not even venture to guess how many times we held a bucket for our oldest Granddaughter.

The first night I slept on the floor beside our oldest Granddaughter's bed and tried my best to keep her fever down and the mess to a minimum. My poor Husband slept with the youngest one, and the bed was nearly a total loss. I have done more laundry over the last few days than I even care to think about, even the dog has thrown-up.

Since the girls have a new infant brother we chose to keep them here for a few days away from him, but the oldest girl just was not getting any better so her parents came after her today. The other two are still with us and fully recovered.

I think that I might even be able to sleep in an actual bed tonight for the first time in two days. I was a little surprised at myself because I actually slept well on the floor and woke up when I needed to throughout the night. I was not even that sore the next day.

Angus is doing very well for those who have asked, he is actually outgrowing the calf who his mother tried to steal, and that calf is nursing both Angus' mother and his own mother.

Thank you so much, Rachel, for getting back to me, but his scours had stopped before I received your message and I didn't receive your message until several days after you had left it.

I am hoping that things might return to somewhat normal soon, but cannot guarantee that for a couple of weeks, I will post when I can.

Just When I Needed You!

Rachel at Welcome To Wilmoth Farms was hit very hard in Kentucky by the ice storm that passed through on Tuesday, January 27th.

If you follow my blog you know that during that storm our little Angus was born. My first thought while he was thawing out in our living room was, I knew Rachel will have some advice for me since it has been many, many years since we raised any calves on bottles.

I had many questions, like how long he should have colostrum, since his Mother never let him nurse? If the goat colostrum that I had on hand would work since the roads were so bad that we couldn't get out to get anything else? How much should he be drinking and how often?

Then the really, really big question, how do you stop these scours????

But alas, Rachel is still without power and Angus may be half grown before she is back among the enlightened. She did read my post about Angus and left a comment but she is only checking in when she can. Since for some reason I am not able to post comments on her blog, I will just have to communicate with her here.

Hello, Rachel, hope you are doing well and I hope that your place is thawed out by now and clean-up is nearly done. I really hope that you get your electricity back soon. But I must say that these on again, off again scours are driving me mad!

Angus is healthy and strong, has bonded with my DH and follows him everywhere he goes. He always runs in a gallop with a few twists and bucks. When he is hungry, he comes to the door and rattles the doorknob, this gave me quite a fright the first time that he did it and I was here all alone.

Since he is staying in the barn right outside my living room door, I am seeing most of his bowel movements and smelling them. Some are firm but some like the one that I slid in the other night and almost fell are very runny.

I would appreciate your home remedy for scours very much. He is currently getting 6 quarts of medicated replacer per day with some yogurt and an egg in each bottle. He is also getting mushed up Calf Manna and we are putting a couple of tablespoons of Pepto-Bismol in each bottle if he appears to need it.

Too Cold

I know that I said that I love snow and cold weather but I don't like this bone-chilling cold. The wind chill today could be -10 and my old bones are screaming for warmer weather. It is suppose to get warmer, even up in the 50's, then all of this snow will melt and we will have mud and flooding but I have already got my snow fix for this year. I am ready for Spring.

Angus is doing well, he is following my DH around while he feeds in the evenings. I got a video of him out in the snow last night. I will try to post it here when I get some more time.

I really love feeding and milking but it is all that I can do to make it outside when it is this cold. I don't remember worrying about the chickens this much, it is so hard to make sure everything has fresh water all of the time. They don't seem to want to drink until the water freezes solid and that happens about 10 minutes after you carry hot water to them.

Enough whining, I just want to thank you all for doing your part to combat Global Warming, your efforts are working and I think those in Kentucky would agree with me.

Angus Antics

Angus found his voice this morning and he was crying for food. My DH woke me up to let me know that the milk was definitely getting through, he had a BM all over his bedroom and my wonderful Husband told me that Angus would have to have a bath. Then my wonderful Husband kissed me goodbye and went to work.

I got up, fixed Angus a bottle and was waiting while it warmed up, it wasn't completely warm when he started crashing through the barrier that I had put up in the doorway to his bedroom.

I grabbed the bottle and moved the barrier, it was obvious that he had gotten a good night's sleep. He galloped to me and started butting me with his nose. He nearly knocked me down before I could get the bottle in his mouth. He drained the quart of milk in about one minute and was wanting more.

When his bottle was empty and I went for more milk, it was "bull in a china shop" time. He started running, leaping and bucking all through the house. He knocked stuff over and kicked and ran into everything. Then he would run over to me and start punching me to get more milk.

His next feeding will have to be with the two quart calf bottle and I am going to have to get some milk replacer fairly quickly because my little doe is not going to be able to support this boy.

I realized rather quickly that poor Angus was not going to be able to be a house calf after all. I ran out the door leaving it open behind me, he ran out in hot pursuit. I can't put him back in the stall with the Does, that would just be to cruel for them. He would pester them into anemia. So he is just running loose out in the barn and getting into everything that he can find to get into.

I must now go tackle the mess that he left in his bedroom, while his next bottle of goat's milk warms in hot water. It is certainly amazing the difference one night can make in a calf's life.

Angus

I have kept you in suspense long enough. We went to our neighbors on Tuesday night for supper, it was the night of the ice storm. We feasted on tender Pork Roast that is like no other, fried plantains with garlic and salt, beans and rice cooked to perfection, boiled potatoes and squash, followed by wonderful lemon meringue pie.

The neighbor mentioned that he was afraid one of his cows was going to calve that night. He really doesn't have a good place to get a cow up and with the weather like it was there wasn't much he could do because all of his pasture is on a hillside.

The next day we got a call saying that she had a bull calf and she was rejecting it. My DH went to help him get her up and try to help the baby nurse. The calf was chilled, weak and covered in ice and mommy just flat didn't like him. She was under the distinct impression that one of the other cow's calves was hers and they could not convince her otherwise.

The calf was given to me, my Husband carried it home wrapped in a wool blanket on his tractor through the ice and snow. I instructed him to bring him into the house to thaw him out.

He thawed out nicely. He accepted a couple of syringes of warm goat's milk to get him kick started. I had some powdered goat colostrum that I mixed into a quart size bottle of warm goat's milk. It wasn't long before he was dry, warm and on his feet giving the house an inspection, he found it to be calf friendly.

With the weather and roads so bad, we had to go to another neighbor's to bum some cow colostrum and an antibiotic as a precaution against whatever might attack him in his weakened state. His nose was already dripping snot on assorted family members.

All went very will and he drank a quart of the cow colostrum from his bottle with so much gusto that he collapsed the bottle at 11:00 last night after we moved him out in the stall with my two does.

The does were not happy campers but we didn't have any other choice. They thought that he was most certainly a fanged, clawed, goat eating predator of some sort. They totally panicked every time he moved. It is a very large stall but they kept trying to run through the walls and jump over the gate. I don't think either of them slept a wink all night because they both had to have both eyes on him at all times in case he made his move.

My problem started this morning, he wouldn't take a bottle. I kept trying all day and could only get a couple of ounces in him at a time and he didn't want it. He laid and trembled.

I was home alone and there was no way I could get him up or carry him but he finally got to his feet and I guided him back into the house at which time he peed on my best rug which made me feel much better because it let me know that he was at least getting something. My estimate was that he relieved himself of three gallons at least.

He did finally drink about a pint tonight and I think that he will drink more later. I know he isn't getting enough and I suppose he will stay in the house. He is laying in front of my refrigerator right now and I can't even get myself something to drink.

More later...

Cows and Calves

We don't have cattle anymore, we didn't have the greatest luck with raising calves though we have done it most of our lives. We lost our favorite cow and it was hard on both of us, so we sold all of our other cows. I do miss calving and I really miss going to check on the cows, even in the middle of a cold winter night.

I got to do a little calf handling yesterday morning and I enjoyed it. We have always helped our neighbor and close friend with his small cattle operation. He has a few black Angus cows and a gorgeous bull, he takes his calves to the Springville Feeder Auction that is just a few miles away.

We normally load and haul his calves for him, but someone else had volunteered to do it yesterday, which was perfect because my DH had to work, he is back to working six days a week again.

The person who was going to haul them came early yesterday morning and realized that there was just no way that he could do it. Our neighbor's farm is mostly hillside and very steep, getting a trailer to his holding pen usually takes a tractor but since we haven't had rain for weeks, it could be done with a 4x4 truck. The problem is that it is a small area and there is not any room for mistakes.

I was sleeping soundly and deeply when the phone rang. I didn't try to answer it because my back has to adjust slowly to achieving vertical status. I could hear the message that was left on the answering machine and recognized the voice. I was a little annoyed about the timing but I thought that it was nice that the neighbor was coming to haul off our trash. I got up, got dressed and gathered all of the trash and was just walking out the door with it when he arrived. I tried to hand it to him but he didn't seem anxious to take it.

He explained his problem to me and I groggily comprehended that he had said that he was coming to get the trailer and not the trash. So I sat the trash down without explaining it to him. As my bad luck would have it, our new shiny black Ford diesel 4x4 truck had the trailer hooked to it and it was pulled right up to the barn/house. It would have to be backed up and turned around. I am not a great trailer backer and my neighbor may be worse.

I got the keys, started the truck and he walked up to the window and asked me if I would do it with our truck instead of having to unhook it to do it with his truck. I told him that I would try if he would fix me a cup of coffee before we started. So I went back into my house, brushed my teeth, wiped the sleep from my eyes, turned the truck and trailer around and headed for their house. His wife had my coffee ready when I arrived.

I got the truck and trailer up the hill to the pen. I somehow managed to back right into perfect position on my second attempt. Everything went like clockwork, I worked the trailer door, my neighbor was in the pen pushing the calves from behind and his wife was reinforcing the gate on the other side of the trailer, so that the calves wouldn't see a hole to go through.

I remember when this neighbor first got cows and my Husband started helping him, it was hard to get across to him that he needed to be quiet and calm when working with cattle, he is a little excitable. Yesterday he was telling his wife that she needed to be completely quiet. To which I added, that she shouldn't move unless something tried to push through her gate. Then he gave her a club, so, I guess he finally gets it.

The calves loaded fairly easy and then I had to turn the thing around again to get it out of there. This is where I got nervous, it had to be done in inches because of the limited space. We were going down a steep and rough hill with the trailer loaded this time and those calves each weighed around 500 lbs.

I didn't hit the gate at the right angle and couldn't get the trailer past the gate post, there was no way to back up and try again, it was just too steep and my load was too heavy. I suggested that he might be able to pull me backwards with his tractor but his wife came up with a better solution. She told me to tell him to cut the gate post. But she also told me that it would have to be my idea or he wouldn't go for it. So I suggested it to him and he went for the chainsaw.

The real problem came when my DH got home and heard what happened. He was upset to say the least. He said that he would never have taken the new truck up there. He would have used the neighbor's tractor, because he wouldn't even take our tractor up there. I asked him finally if I would ever hear the end of it and he told me, no.

I am sure in 10 years when the truck develops some mechanical problem or he ever gets a flat tire, it will be my fault. But I am used to it, everything is always my fault anyways.