Thursday, December 31, 2009

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.

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