Milk problem

[M Blake]

Any advice welcome!

We have had a bull calf from a 6th calver at 11.30 this morning. The calf is a cracking Limo sired lad and we had no problems calving at all.
Have been monitoring all afetrnoon, cleansed within a couple of hours but calf had not sucked by 4 o'clock.
The cow is non short and has a large udder and the calf is a good size. We brought them into the yard to help him suck. On inspection the cows teats have a solid pencil size cording in each one with no milk at all. The udder is large there is no temperature and no signs at all of mastitis and the cow is eating happily.
I have a neighbour who has dairy heifers freshly calved and can let me have some colostrum early this evening.
Spoke to the vet and he suggests running a tube up the teat possibly?
Is it possible she may just be taking time to let down, though as I say her udder is very large.

Any clues much appreciated,
Mark

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Try to get someone, neighbour, other farmer, vet, who has experience of drawing teats or hand milking to have a look if you possibly can. If you can find someone who will draw off a few pints then you can give the calf the colostrum from your own cow which is much preferable to getting some from another cow on another farm. You need to get colostrum into your calf tonight - colostrum from another farm is preferable to none at all.

Once you have got say 4 pints in before the calf is 12 hours old you can take a bit more time and encourage the calf to find the teats himself if the udder is pendulous.

Duncan

[helena]

Hi
we always get colostrum into a calf within six hours after that the calf may have problems.it is best to always have colostrum in hand you can buy this in the form of dried milk its safe as it has been treated so it will not pass infection on.If the calf will not drink we tube them with a bag sounds hard but once you learn it s a life saver for a sick calf.just had a commercial heifer calve I tubed the calf with colostrum last night as the heifer was a bit stressed left overnight and the calf has been with her allday.Dont know how tame your cattle are but as we have a suckler herd of simmi if a calf is not suckling within 5 hours I do tube them put the cow and calf somewhere quiet and just keep an eye on them from a distance main thing is get that colostrum in them.If you become worried about the calf and unsure if its dehydrating look at its eyes they will begin to sink into the sockets act quickly.

[M Blake]

Thanks for the advice guys, both my neighbour and my father -in - law have not seen the four quarters seemingly choked as this cow is. She is fine in herself no temp and eating but no milk at all. Have given calf colostrum from neighbours heifers that calved earlier today. At 7 he eventually sucked away on a bottle 1.5 litres and has just happily taken another 1/2 litre.
Cow is in the shed next to me at all times talking to her calf and is calm. We will see what the morning brings fingers crossed.If there is no change a jab to aid the letting down of her milk has been mentioned ?
Thanks again, Mark

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Glad you have got some into the calf, that takes some of the worry out of the situation.

The teats seem a strange thing to happen in a cow which has obviously reared several calves - a quarter can go blind after an injury to a teat or after a bad mastitis but for it to happen to all 4 quarters seems a bit unlikely. Oxytocin is used in dairy cattle, usually only heifers which need it. Given at milking time it does induce let-down but should not be necessary in an older cow with calf present and trying to suckle. Maybe worth a call to your vet tomorrow, because you really want to have the cow and calf going properly together pretty soon or you will be faced with hand rearing the calf. I don't mean to be alarmist, just think the time to move on it is now, or at least tomorrrow - being Friday it does not leave much time to get things done before the weekend.

Duncan

[davidw]

I had a similar problem where the cows udder was so full and distended it was obviously sore. The calf was hesitant and every time she tried to suckle the cow kicked her away. My vet told me just to leave them to "get on with it", but with a lot of effort we hand milked the cow and got some colostrum into the calf. Probably not enough because she died from pneumonia at just under a month. So I'd definitely advise getting some colostrum into the calf asap, either natural or artificial.

[M Blake]

Update on the cow and calf. Had the vet Friday morning and she says the udder has had an infection which has caused the udder problem. She seems to think there has been a slow build up and not mastitis that has been prevelent this spring.
We have now given penstrep and the calf is being hand reared. He is in good condition and we are feeding small amounts 4 times a day now on to powder after 9 litres of colostrum.
Vet did not offer much hope for the future productivity of the cow.
You think that you would notice infection but she has never been off her food is in good condition...the only thing that we think might have contributed was after we weaned her last calf she went backin with the other mothers who still had calves and was suckled but she was away from them for at least 2 weeks?

Thanks for the replies, Mark

[helena]

hi
we have an MRI that always has a great deal of milk for two years she was just like your cow large udder no milk let down and a calf that had to be fed.last year as soon as she calved I gave her combiclav and combiclav cow tubes twice a day making sure I held the end of the teat and rubbed the teat and udder to make sure the cream entered the bag.she did dry off but the bag seemed ok.this year she has calved everything ok and has fed her calf perfect.things dont always work but i dont give up without a fightsometimes difficult as the commercial suckler cows are not always user friendly.hope you dont mind me replying again.since my accident and unable to leave home much I do look at the internet forums more there is only so many repeats on tv you can watch.