how to get a calve to suck

[victorfirst]

Hi Folks

Cow has calved (thanks for advice in past, but i was not needed or involved) but now the problem seems to be in getting the calve to suck. It showed no interest being born around 7 so tubed it at 10.30. The calve is now up and running around 18.30 but still showing no signs of looking for mothers milk. It would need to be very flexible as udder is very low . Should i leave it until the morning to see what nature does or tube or bottle feed tonite.

Many thanks

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Either tie the cow on a halter to a gate, post or whatever. Handle as quietly as possible. Make sure each teat is open, ie you can draw milk from them all. If the cow is nervous you may need somenone to hold her from jumping side to side. Sometimes I lay the calf in its side almost under the cow, and sometimes let them stand, but you need to get the calf's mouth close enough to a teat to be able to get the teat into the mouth. Put a finger in first, it may help to smear it with colostrum. Ease the finger in at the side of the mouth and then get it straight as a teat would be when suckling. If the calf is going to suck it will suck your finger. Once you have established that, juggle things to you can ease one of the cow's front teats into the mouth in place of your finger. Usually the first attempts are pretty feeble then suddenly the calf gets it an it is off. Be patient, don't be rough with either cow or calf.

Duncan

[victorfirst]

Brilliant advice thank you.

[Tim Watson]

Victor, I may be being slow but if I understand you right the calf was born at 7 and you stomach tuned 3.5hrs later?

[victorfirst]

Tom that is correct. I used the powder colostrum. In my ignorance was that the wrong thing to do?

[Louisa Gidney]

Tubing rather defeats the object of getting the calf to suck. That's why I suggested previously handling the cow's udder so you strip some milk to bottle feed. Then, once the calf has twigged the sucking bit, use the bottle teat to guide it to the dam's teat. I also milk onto my fingers to give the calf a taste for milk by sucking them and massage the teats with milk so it can associate the smell, taste and source of milk.
I certainly would not have intervened in such a radical manner so soon after birth. Although it's best to get them to feed within 6 hours of birth, they can survive longer than that before panicking. I would not have used artificial colostrum in preference to the dam's own, unless there was a real crisis. Calves are not the same as lambs in that respect.

[Tim Watson]

Victor,

I think Louisa covers it all.

When less experienced we did stomach tube a calf after about 6 hours but we did it in ignorance. As was explained to me you need to get the suck reflex going in the calf and tubing does nothing for this as they tend to sleep after having a full stomach.

Typically we find the heifers are up and going quicker than the bull calves. We had a heifer last Friday and 15 minutes after birth she was standing and 15 mins after that she was sucking but they are not all that quick. It also depends on what the cow is like. Some don't stand still and keep rotating away from the calf.

As Louisa said, we would watch and wait having noted birth time and make sure that they had colostrum at about 6hrs after birth. If we can't get it from the dam then we would use powdered. I know there is a risk of the quality as has been covered on here before but it's an informed decision we take