Snowflake may have finally turned the corner....she nursed vigorously this morning! As of last night, we were thinking she wouldn't last another couple days.......although we had been tube feeding her, you can't do that forever. If you don't let them actually get hungry, they will never have the desire to nurse, so we decided just to let her be last night and see what would happen this morning. Also, we put molasses on the nipple, which may have just done the trick. She seemed actually interested about 6:30 this morning, and was actually bawling and latched on and took nearly a whole bottle by 9:30!
She is still weak and anything could happen, but it is very encouraging that she is actually wanting to nurse! Now, we are trying to decide whether or not to try her back on her mom, or just let her be a bottle baby......it would be best for her to go back on the cow, but she may not take her back since it has been 3 days. We may bring mom and put her and baby in a stall and see what happens. We would just have to watch closely and make sure the cow doesn't try to injure or kill the calf.....but it is a possibility.
I will update later, and hopefully have some new pictures......have a great day everyone!
Good news! yea! At least she is going in the right direction at the moment. Hope mom will let her nurse. You would think mom would need her to nurse to lessen her milk overload...but...what do I know about cows??? not a thing! lol....debbie
ReplyDeleteYou are right Debbie!! It does lessen the pressure from their udder, and should feel good to them. But only if it is their calf....most momma cows won't take a calf that isn't theirs, or one that was taken away from them and re-introduced several days later. There are some exceptions of course, but as a rule, they can be very picky about accepting a strange or unfamiliar calf. But, if she remembers her, or remembers the calf's smell, then she will probably take her back with no problems.....this is what we are hoping!
ReplyDeleteCan you do the thing you do with horses where you milk the mare and give the milk to the foal. Doing that makes the foal smell right to the mare. I've heard you can actually graft foals onto nurse mares doing this.
ReplyDeleteCows could be the same, It's got to be the scent the cow is looking for. Worth a try if you have issues.
Yes Rainbow, apparently the milk makes the manure from the foal or calf smell right to the mama. We have had luck doing that before. You can also put molasses on the calf's back and rear end, and as the cow licks it off, she bonds with the calf. Our problem now is that the mama cow's milk has dried up, so I probably have me a bottle baby....:-)
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