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| Thanks guys for all your help. We were going to try two more things last night before we gave up. We were planning on getting mama in the chute and trying to get some milk (colostrum) into the calf and then take it in the house and put it in tub full of 85- 90 degree water. (My wife's reaction was "You're gonna do WHAT?!) Luckily we didn't have to. We drenched (maybe this is not the right term, we have an esophageal feeder with the bottle and a knob on the end of the tube that we used) the calf about 2:00 pm for the second time. At 4:00 it still was laying on its side bawling once in a while. By 5:30 though it was laying curled up in the calf warmer. We got it up and it was able to stand so we put it in the barn with mama and she immediately started licking it and before long it was trying to stand up. We left it and my son checked on it at 10:00. It was laying off in the corner of the stall with the cow right there and she looked like she had been nursed. Checked on it this morning at 6:00 and it was still laying there but with its head up and when I looked at it 20 minutes later it was standing up and mama was licking it. At this point I'm pretty optimistic that it's going to make it. I understand why people calve in April and May but I also understand why some, including me, calve in February and March. It's a matter of trying to spread the work out and getting it to work for our operation. It is amazing how tough the little buggers are. | |
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Half frozen calf
