So far, so good

The little calf is coming along. She sleeps a lot, but eats "aggressively" - meaning, she goes after her bottle. She will most likely stay a bottle baby - her mom has been letting other calves nurse now. She is not yet ready to return outside. I hate the idea of making her coat not as good, but since having a live calf is most important at the time, she will remain indoors, moving into a heated garage once she becomes more active.

So far, she gets up to eat, do her business (not too hard to catch with bucket or whatever as she isn't active as normal calves are), stands and walks slowly about her enclosure for about 15 minutes, then lays back down to take another nap. Her color is good and she is sleeping in more of a normal position, though she still gets the pillow next to her to be sure she doesn't roll off her mat and onto the concrete floor.

I am hoping it only takes a few days - I know when we brought in a lamb (6 months old) that was cold, she slept for almost two days before returning to normal. It took her about a week of recovery. We have just been using similar steps to help revive the animals as would be done with a human.

Calfy no longer shivers and doesn't have a blanket anymore. Respiration is normal as is temperature. Now her body needs time to allow food to go to more than just maintenance. Hopefully within the week she will be back up and normal. If she does end up as a permanent bottle baby, more pictures will come.



Izzy has adjusted to the calf living indoors, she is no longer completely afraid. Now the only issue (other than time and tlc) for the calf is the screen we had to put in front of the fireplace to be sure she doesn't touch the front (it get's hot and we don't want her to burn herself as she is not 100% stable on her legs yet).



Oh - calfy will eventually get a name, however, until we are sure she will survive, we won't choose one. She can now stand up without help again, so her signs are continually improving.

Doing Better

Yesterday - the calf was up and nursing. The vest was on because we knew it would be cold at night and wanted to help her out a bit.



Hypothermia and a calf - never a good thing. However, when you are born at -10 and your mom is a 1st calf heifer who doesn't want anything to do with you - life can really be tough. She was good the first 24 hours, but the last 18 have not been good.

Baby calfy looked about dead, but she is coming along - warming her up slowly this is an hour or so after bringing her in. We found her laying out flat in the field, away from the rest of the herd. She wasn't frozen, but she was not very responsive either, and the inside of her mouth was cold. In the photo, she has a vest (heated in dryer for 10 minutes first) on her, then a heating pad, then another pad and finally the kitty blanket to keep out any drafts.



3 hours later - when offered a bottle again - she got right up to eat!!! That is a wonderful sign! She is still shivering - but after walking around (very limited area - boy am I glad I said no on the new flooring for now :)) - she found the same spot as the lamb - in front of the warm air from the fireplace. We can't leaver her alone in the basement, but she is beginning to recover. After a meal, she is now wearing just the calf pad (Udder Tech, Inc.)


and now it is back to nap time - still no where near 100%, but after a full tummy - get back in a nice warm spot for a nap.


Oh - and Izzy (the lamb who went through this a few weeks ago) is doing much better, though not amused that she must remain in her kennel and that the small pen has been given to the calf




Queen Izzy, chewing her cud, after removing the dog from a chair - she is afraid to be on the floor with the calf (who is too busy sleeping to even consider the lamb)

Just found this and want to be able to find it again :)

Been working on all sorts of Christmas things - a few pics, but no indicators of who they are for: