We have a cow who suffered from a bad case of milk fever, who despite two visits from our vets we cannot get to eat or drink. We are currently drenching and injecting her with calcitet but we are thinking ahead and was wondering if anyone has a need to buy a five day steer calf? He has fed well since birth and is strong.
Please call 07786290503 or if you can think of anything else to stimulate the cow ...she has been checked for missing trace elements and has had her rumen pumped. She is well covered and is ten years old. Thanks for your thoughts
Hi Debbie, approx. 20 years ago (!) we had a cow with similar. The vet left us some sachets of vile smelling power to make up into a drench and administer. It was made from Bovine Stomachs and its purpose was to stimulate the good bacteria in the gut to work and so encourage appetite and get the rumen working again.
Our cow (although a young animal) made a full recovery after a couple of days on the vile sachets - I don't know if these are even made now (at the time our vet suggested that if it was possible to obtain some "cud" from another cow this would do a similar job).
Try her with some ivy, old fashioned but if she will eat a bit it will stimulate her digestion. Also offer her wheat straw, whenever any of mine have been ill it is the first thing they want to eat.
Good Luck.
Di
have tried all of the above but still will only eat and drink the smallest amount. Have tried Lisa's contact too. At a loss as to why she will not eat. Now just waiting for calf's passport to arrive and then send them off to market
where i work they have been using a product called pro-rumen on their new calved cows that are slow to get their appetite back (think it is a vet only product ) it is a powder that you make into a drench dont spill onto your clothes it stinks
She was inside...now outside as weather is fine. Access to hay, silage, ivy, concentrate...trying her with a homeopathic spray. Grazed steadily all day yesterday but now looking depressed again so we will be giving her another bottle of Calcijet tonight.
I wanted to let those that kindly gave advice that Bianca is well on the way to a full recovery...so the subject matter has now changed in that the calf is now not for sale
Looking forward to next year, I know they are more prone to a repeat performance once they have had it before and you probably already know this but...there is a drench can be given on the lead up to calving for prevention of staggers, also feeding a high magnesium feed helps them to make calcium...(not sure how that works), like a good helping of suckler cow feed daily in the weeks leading up to the due date.