Our TN Adventure: Calves

Chuck & Tbone

Well, week 1 has been very hard. I think the calves are the hardest animal to take care of so far that we have had here on our farm. The calves have been staying in the barn you see in the picture. The doorway is too large and doesn't give much coverage for wind or rain so we put up a tarp to cover half of it.

Both boys have had the scours since we got them. They started on milk replacer and then got the scours, diarrhea. So we switched them off of the milk replacer and started electrolytes which was suppose to help keep them hydrated until the scours cleared up. Well into the week it still hadn't gotten any better so I gave the vet a call. She had me come right in for some medications for them.

The first medication was a pill called SMZ which is a type of sulfa antibiotic pill. The second medication was a pill called Endocalf Bolus which is a scours medication without an antibiotic in it, hence the reason for the SMZ. She also gave us a third medication which was a shot and it was Baytril & B12. From what I under stand the Baytril is another type of antibiotic and the B12 is a vitamin.

We had to give the medications for three days. It wasn't very hard, we had a pill gun to help give the pills. It's just a long piece of plastic that you fit the pill in the end so you can place the pill far back into the calves mouth so they will swallow it. Shots were easy since I have experience with that with the goats. The boys did really well taking all of their medications. Hopefully the medication works. We have now begun mixing the electrolytes with some milk replacer to try to get their stomachs used to it without having the scours.

They do seem to have a little bit more energy, hopefully as the medications start working they will start feeling much better.

Below are some pictures of the boys. They have lost some weight from just having electrolytes and it just breaks my heart to look at them soo skinny, but I know that I'm doing everything I can and doing it right to get and keep them healthy.

Hopefully they will start gaining some weight back soon.