|
Western Nebraska | My guess would be the calf was already on his way out and your efforts were too little too late. If you got the tube down the wrong hole and dumped milk in his lungs you would have known it. It wouldn't have taken him 20 minutes to die and there would have been a lot of thrashing around. Depending on how much you put down him, as soon as you pulled the tube it would have started to run back out his nose and mouth. The lungs have a lot smaller volume for liquid than the stomach does. I learned all of this the hard way a couple years ago. As to the question of how to tell if the cow has been nursed, take a real close look at the bag and the size of the tits in relation to one another. Depending on the age of the cow and the condition of her udder it will be real obvious if she has been nursed. If the animal in question is a heifer the whole bag will probably be nursed, if it is an older stock cow there is a real good likelihood that not all of the quarters will be nursed. The older cow may have one or more tits that are smaller than the others. If the calf was actually two days old and had never nursed I really don't think he would probably be walking around. They can survive for a while without milk, but a newborn two days would surprise me, especially during the summer. | |
|
sick calf
