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S.E. Iowa | I have a calf that lost its momma. This pair was in one of our hoop buildings.This was three months ago or so. We had some cows out grazing down cover crop of which 16 or 18 are half dairy cows that are bottle raised very tame cows. So we went out and got the first pair in the field that followed us up to the barns and locked them up with a calf to graft so she would have " twins". She took the second calf and is doing fine. This calf is weighing 150 to 175 lbs and when feeding bales we will see this calf stealing a suck from the other cows. Yesterday one of our spring calving cows lost a calf that looked premature. Today we took the grafted calf and locked in with the cow that lost its calf to regraft. Tonight the cow didn't seem like she had been sucked so I milked her. She kicked a little at first but then she just stood there and let me go. She didn't kick at the calf at all when it was close. Her bag was warm and tight all four teats milked. The calf was too big for me to make it suck but I did get its nose up to the teat and it just stood there. Will this thing work or should we re regraft the older calf to where it came from and get a new born calf to put on the cow? | |
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Grafting a old calf (kind of long)
