Re: O/T force feeding calves

Posted by john in la on July 19, 2005 at 18:40:29 from (65.6.125.128):

In Reply to: O/T force feeding calves posted by Tim...Ok on July 19, 2005 at 10:54:59:

This is really hard to do because I have not seen the calves. I may notice a big point you forgot to mention.
You said they are scourin so lets start there.

If these calves did not get colostrums from their mom you can forget about trying that now. It is to late.
If they did get their colostrums they can still come down sick very easy coming from a sale barn.

If they are scouring
GET THEM OFF THE MILK NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Replace the milk with this
20 teaspoons of dextrose (white corn syrup)
4 teaspoons of table salt
3 teaspoons of baking soda
1 gallon of water
You can substitute glucose for the dextrose but under no circumstances can you use sucrose (table sugar). Calves can not digest sucrose.
You can try the tube if you want to or you can slowly squeeze the bottle and let them drink it down like that.
My wife has success using children’s pedilite when I have all but give up.

Now you need to figure out what went wrong. Are you feeding them to much at one time. 8 to 10% of body weight per day broke into two feedings is enough. While a big calf like a holstein can take two full bottles a day a smaller jersey size calf only needs 3/4 a bottle twice a day.
In fact if you give them more you can give them scours. A baby calf only uses 1 of its 4 stomachs when on milk. If you give it more than this 1 stomach can hold it will spill over into the others and sit there till it goes sour.

Calves that get sick 2 days after coming from a sale barn more than likely got pneumonia or other respiratory diseases. I have found it cost affective and a good practice to get some one time nose spray for the calves. Give it to them as soon as they get home. I can not think of the name right now but a vet will know it well.

For this group I would get them on the electrolytes right away and get a vet to look at them ASAP. LA is good but your vet can treat the real problem and not just hit and miss with a all-round drug.

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