New calf problem

[rrblack78]

We had a new baby heifer born yesterday. Momma loves the baby. Very affectionate and protective but the will not let the baby nurse. The funny thing is she will let us milk her. She walks right in the shoot and stands for us to milk her but if we put the baby on the teat she kicks and goes crazy. We have been supplementing with mom milk in a syringe but in 30 plus hours baby has only nursed 4 times because every body here works and mommas head and feet need to be tied and someone as to stand at her face while some else holds baby up to the teat. How long can they go on like this before they get the hang of it? Should we intervene even more?

 

[HelenH]

Try baiting the cow's attention with a taste of grain while your working with her. Perhaps block her view of that side so she can't see what is at her udder. Otherwise, rope the flank girth to deter kicking.

 

[BroncoFan]

Hobble that cow.

 

[GoWyo]

After the chute and grain distraction routine, if the calf is fairly aggressive and knows where the udder is, hobble the cow and put her in about a 20 to 30 foot pen and let the calf at her.  May have to tie the cow to a fence a couple of times, but once the cow gets though a nursing without a bunch of people around things will probably be alright.

 

[rrblack78]

Thanks for the advice. I think they were doing a little better this evening. We attempted a hobble but she kicked out of it twice. But we caught her in the act of nursing just fine the when she saw us watching she started trying to kick the baby again. This is a former show heifer and she is a goofy one to boot. We had to move them out of the stall in the barn and put them in the small pen behind the house. Too much traffic in the barn but we had her in trying to keep the baby warm.

 

[DCC_Cattle]

If the baby seems to be doing fine and has energy, then she is probably nursing on her own. We've had cows like this before. They will kick like crazy when we try to assist a calf to nurse or just when we're around, but if you go away and poke your head in, the cow lets it nurse just fine. We had one last year that for 4-5 days we tied the cow in a chute 3 times a day to try and get the baby nursing because she always kicked. Happen to look in one day and the baby was nursing just fine. They are tricky!

 

[rrblack78]

New calf is not very spunky but she is very tiny, only 51lbs about 6 hours after birth. This was a test for these two cows. We did show them last year but only in one show that had a commercial replacement heifer show plus a few jackpot shows. We wanted to see if they could put a live calf on the ground and be a good momma as our goal for these is to be recipient cows. If she can't keep a baby alive we need to know it now before we have a valuable embryo put in her. The other cow had hers 3 weeks ago and is doing great. If we let her she would raise this baby too.