Cow not settled to calf.

[domsmith]

Had 3 calves today. weather was as bad as it could be in April. 3in snow gail force freezing northern wind. 2 born outside, no probs all well, tagged and happy. one boen inside and the mother doesnt want to feed it.

i wasnt there when it was born, its her first calf and i suspect got confused. as always at sunnyside there was a pig, a goose and bull in the same pen just to confuse matters. she just caught me out or she would have been in her own pen.

she is a lovely wee heifer very quiet so i halter her and she stands whilst the calf sucks, but she will not let her suck without me interfering.

will she get it if i persist, any other ideas?

ta dom

[Saffy]

That isn't so unusual for a heifer Dom but it sounds to me as if you are doing the right thing, it is what I would do and hopefully she will relax and feel a bit happier about her calf soon. I often get one that keeps turning around when the calf tries to suckle for the first day or so and if a bucket of food doesn't do the trick, then it has to be a halter or the crush.

Stephanie

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Sometimes you do have to interfere a bit, it is very tricky - the only real way to be sure you should iterfere is to wait till it is too late! If a cow or heifer is inclined to kick a calf away, or sometimes just keep moving so they can't connect, you do have to hold the mother to let the calf suck. Just slowly lessen the interference till it get to the stage you just need to appear, the calf will go in, and the heifer will let it because she knows you are there.

I had to take one of mine in yesterday, calved some time between 2 am and 6 am, bitter cold, strong wind but no snow. By lunchtime the calf had not stood or suckled, so I took them in, milked of about quarter of a litre and gave it to the calf from a bottle. By early evening the calf was jumping round the pen and trying to suckle but she was lifting a foot every time. This is her third calf, 1st she would not let feed ever and I hand reared, last year all went ok, but the weather messed it up this year. All are ok now however and if it is reasonable weather they will go out tomorrow.

Duncan

[davidw]

I agree with Duncan, I've had a couple of calves where mums wouldn't let them suckle. First one, the vet advised me to leave well alone. he said, when the calf is hungry, the cow will let it drink. It didn't. We lost the calf a month later to pneumonia. Second one, I milked the heifer and bottled it into the calf. Once pressure was off, both settled down and they haven't looked back since.

[Anthony Henman]

If you get a cow which won't let the calf suck/is aggressive towards the calf get her in a position where you can put a ratchet strap over her back and in front of her udder and do it up fairly tight this usually enables you to safely put the calf onto the cow. Had 2 this year, one the cow tried to kill the calf so we got her contained, ratchet strapped her up, got the calf suckling, left her with the calf for a few hours strapped up and let the strap off and she was fine with it then. Other one not so simple, had to leave her confined to the front of the stock box after the ratchet strap treatment because she was ignoring her calf. She was in there for 10 days before I dared let her out.

[domsmith]

Things are worse this evening, she wont stop kicking. i might try the ratchet strap tomorrow.

very frustrating, i can see me bottle feeding this one.

bahhh

dom

[Broomcroft]

I had a terrible one a few years ago dom. She completely rejected her calf, kicked it, head butted it almost to the point where I thought I'd have to remove the calf to stop it from being killed. I fed it from a bottle whilst penned up with the cow, but only gave it enough to keep it fit but hungry. After a full week the cow suddenly let it suckle and I stopped the bottle.

Mind you, it was a very persistent calf.

Good luck.

[fdb]

Have had this with ewes and lambs so penned them then took my german shepard into the room (on a lead). The mothering instinct immediately kicks in and that's job done. Not tried it on cattle though but it may work.

[domsmith]

I only have a Scottish shepherd here....... will that do??