Rough Start

I have been holding off on posting about this little heifer until I felt more encouraged about her chances.  She has had a rough start.  She was born September 10th, probably premature, to an older cow.  The calf was about 20 pounds and the cow ended up not having much milk.  J tried to supplement it with a bottle but it just wouldn't take it well.  J ended up selling the cow and the little calf just kept getting weaker.  I started trying to feed her 3 times a day but that just  made her take less at the other 2 times.  

So I decided to start tube feeding her.  The problem was she is so small and a normal esophageal feeder would be to big and I would risk ulcerating her esophagus with repeated tubings.

So I got a dog red rubber feeding tube and tried that.  You can see the size difference.  The red rubber one worked perfect.  So now I was feeding her 3 times a day and making sure she was getting enough but then she got scours.  I'm sure she didn't get adequate colostrum since the cow had so little milk.   So then I was tubing her with antibiotics, probiotics, anti diarrhea medicine and electrolytes along with her milk feedings. 

I don't coupon at Dollar General for nothing.  The powerades I got a while back worked great.  I would feed her milk in the morning, powerade in the afternoon, and milk again in the evening.  But now she was too weak to even stand and she definitely wasn't even trying to nurse the bottle.   I would carry her outside in the morning for some sun, put her in the shade in the afternoon and carry her back to the barn at night.  One morning looked pretty bleak when she wouldn't even lift her head up.  But things started looking up Wednesday.  That evening she nursed all her milk from the bottle and I didn't have to tube her at all.  I had been tubing her 3 times a day for 9 days.  Then yesterday, same thing, all three meals on her own, no medicine and no electrolytes.  Plus, she can stand!   Well, I have to pick her up, but then she is standing on her own.  She is over the scours and starting to gain weight.  I haven't named her yet because I didn't want to jinx anything.  Maybe in a few days if she can start getting up on her own again I will consider a name.  J asked if she was going to start living in the yard and staying in the garage.  I said I didn't even know that was an option, but yes, sounds like a plan.

Meanwhile, twin Red River is just about weaned.  He is only getting leftover milk from the little black one.  When I raked the grass clippings the other day, it looked and smelled better than any hay we had so we decided to take it to the barn for Red instead of putting it on the garden.  He loves it.