OT: 2 calf issues

Just wrapping up calving season and I'm having 2 issues.

1) I ended up with a beef bucket calf. It's pretty rare since I can usually get a problem cow into the chute and get her calf started. This cow would have NONE of it, and preferred to abandon her calf instead (which very likely earned her a one-way ticket on the bologna express). Anyway, the main problem seems to be with the calf and not the cow. He's mentally disabled (I know, it's very hard to diagnose in cattle, but he seems to not know how to eat). I had to tube feed for a while, then I finally taught him how to eat a bottle. After what seemed like forever, I finally taught him to drink out of a bucket (though he still forgets every few days). He won't touch calf starter unless I shove it in his mouth or let it dissolve in milk first. He seems healthy and fit except for being mentally disabled. He's 7 weeks old now. Do I just starve him to see if I can get him to start eating calf starter? Any other tricks?

2) Set of twins and the cow only loves one of them. I had them all in confinement for a week and forced her to nurse them both. Eventually after a week she seemed to accept them both so I put them out. 3 days later and she was back in confinement for starving the calf she doesn't like. It seems she will only allow the orphan calf to nurse if I'm standing next to her. Otherwise she kicks the carp out of it. At this point, I'm not sure if she will accept the calf for real or not, but it seems to be getting enough to eat now (if I'm supervising). I've put orphans on other cows before and the cow has always accepted them after a few days of nursing. Think this a lost cause?

Solution: one pickup, one stock trailer, trip to sale barn for all. BTDT. Don"t waste your time.

I worked on a dairy in western Oklahoma about 30 years ago, we ran heifers on range land and most of them were covered with our angus cross range bull. IIRC any angus calf was mentally retarded they just didn't get the bucket thing and were too dumb to suckle, just fought them and eventually they got with the program, of course in the dairy environment they had other calves so there was social pressure to eat.I suppose the question is how much time are you willing to spend raising calves? The down side is if you bring the two problem children in to bucket raise that's a lot of time for only two calves at the dairy we'd usually have 5-10 in the hutches at a time and count on 30- 40 minutes a feeding at the calf pen.

I know bucket calves at the salebarn are down from what they were, but unless you have time to mess with them everyday, I would ship both calves. In our part of the world, its rare that a cow with twins can raise both of them.

I guess I have always just did the work and kept the bottle calves, a bottle calf is better than a dead calf, as for the orphaned twin calf I would just pull it off and then have too bucked calves, maybe the second one will learn quick and teach the first one about the calf starter

As long as he is gaining weight I'd let him grow. I had one this spring I actually had to teach to stand and walk. I worked with him for about a month. Finally knocked him in the head one day. I didn't want to feed him all summer and he was not making progress.

I had a calf like your first one last year. He took too long to be born(hard pull) and he was "slow" from then on. I did exactly as you described...he eventually learned to nurse his mother, but it took about two months of me milking the cow and struggling with him to nurse at the same time. I thought about a bullet for him many times...but didn't. He eventually grew (some) and made it to weaning...but was considerably smaller than the others. INterexting side note was that he "adopted" me as his buddy. He tagged after me for the balance of the summer. I became attached to him.

If you have the patience, I'd put your two calves together and work with them both. THe healthy one will teach the slow one many things that will help you. If you don't have the patience, get them both gone.

As far as number one,I had one last year did exactly the same thing. Would drink water from a bucket on his own,but not milk replacer. Got dehydrated,I spent a fortune getting the vet out to rehydrate him,still lost him in the end.

Sounds like you are on the way to a team of oxen ther Randall! Nothing wrong with a pet doing a day's work now and then!
TJ- I used to feel sorry for calves drinking starter- that stuff would gag me opening the bag. I could see why they'd rather die than eat it. Hey there are bad human moms, bad cow moms, but like a mother bird kicking one out of the nest.... they know something is wrong with it, we see them as income, they still think 'survival of the fittest'.... in the long run, some of the 'bad' mothers are probably saving the owner time and money...

I would put the two calves together and put both those cows on the truck. Good riddance.
You have a better chance at getting them to survive at this point if you can micromanage them.
I've had calves that absolutely refused to start on a bucket. If he is on a bottle, just keep him on 1 a day. Will he eat grass?
The others are right, calf #2 will prob start easier on things and show the dummy how its done.

> If he is on a bottle, just keep him on 1 a day.
> Will he eat grass?

He won't even touch water, grass, or the calf starter pellets on his own. I'll try cutting him back to one milk replacer feeding a day next week to see if that can convince him he needs to start eating something else.

> The others are right, calf #2 will prob start easier on things and show the dummy how its done.

Hey, how did you know calf #1 was named Dummy? I started something bad there. My 18 month old daughter loves the calf and runs around yelling "Dummy! Dummy! Dummy!" all the time which makes for some awkward moments.

Anyway, thanks for the advice everyone.