1MrsMagoo
Chillin' with the herd
Dug a little more online and made a call....
I called the guy we buy our hay from, who raises beef cattle. He gave me the following advice.
For a newborn calf with weak muscles you can give the calf about 3cc's of BO-SE or 3cc's of MU-SE: Both are Selenium-Vitamin E. You might also try a few cc's of vitimin B12 (not the B-complex) you will need to get some selenium in the calf pretty soon. The feed stores usually carry the selenium in a paste form for goats.
He says it is important to try to get the calf up and massage its legs a few times a day to keep the blood flowing. Also before you try to get her to take her bottle, or you tube her, massage all around her mid section, rump, and legs. This mimics the mother licking the calf and will stimulate the sucking reflex. He says he was taught this by an old timer and has saved a lot of calves this way.
Also, you can try giving vitapaste or nutridrench. Keep the Karo syrup to a minimum since it is a laxative, but will give them an immediate boost in the meantime. I actually give my goats a small amount of a nutridrench, karo, electrolyte, and coffee mix when they have been that sick and it always helps.
I asked about the infection and he says all you can do is watch the temperature and listen to see if her lungs start to rattle: She could get pneumonia. He said what the vet was giving her sounded about right, although since her leg sounded sore and swollen he wondered if she shouldn't get some Banamine (anti-inflammatory) too.
As a last resort, I read on another forum where a woman who brought a very small sick calves into the house. She has a stock tank and kept it in a temperature controlled environment. Now, in her case it was VERY cold outside, but since a premie cant deal with temperature extremes, it would stand to reason that high as well as low temperatures would be bad. My dad has bad lungs and high temperature with high humidity levels about do him in.
Also according to the lady linked below, you can rub their butts in some way to make them go poo on demand, which you then catch in a bucket? You can read her story here.
http://familycow.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=calving&action=display&thread=22623#
I called the guy we buy our hay from, who raises beef cattle. He gave me the following advice.
For a newborn calf with weak muscles you can give the calf about 3cc's of BO-SE or 3cc's of MU-SE: Both are Selenium-Vitamin E. You might also try a few cc's of vitimin B12 (not the B-complex) you will need to get some selenium in the calf pretty soon. The feed stores usually carry the selenium in a paste form for goats.
He says it is important to try to get the calf up and massage its legs a few times a day to keep the blood flowing. Also before you try to get her to take her bottle, or you tube her, massage all around her mid section, rump, and legs. This mimics the mother licking the calf and will stimulate the sucking reflex. He says he was taught this by an old timer and has saved a lot of calves this way.
Also, you can try giving vitapaste or nutridrench. Keep the Karo syrup to a minimum since it is a laxative, but will give them an immediate boost in the meantime. I actually give my goats a small amount of a nutridrench, karo, electrolyte, and coffee mix when they have been that sick and it always helps.
I asked about the infection and he says all you can do is watch the temperature and listen to see if her lungs start to rattle: She could get pneumonia. He said what the vet was giving her sounded about right, although since her leg sounded sore and swollen he wondered if she shouldn't get some Banamine (anti-inflammatory) too.
As a last resort, I read on another forum where a woman who brought a very small sick calves into the house. She has a stock tank and kept it in a temperature controlled environment. Now, in her case it was VERY cold outside, but since a premie cant deal with temperature extremes, it would stand to reason that high as well as low temperatures would be bad. My dad has bad lungs and high temperature with high humidity levels about do him in.
Also according to the lady linked below, you can rub their butts in some way to make them go poo on demand, which you then catch in a bucket? You can read her story here.
http://familycow.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=calving&action=display&thread=22623#
