Breath of Life
There are some tricks you can use to get a calf to breathe on its own.
Sometimes after a difficult birth the calf is sluggish and doesn't start breathing on its own, especially if it has been deprived of oxygen for too long during birth. According to Matt Miesner, Kansas State University, there are some drugs and some techniques that can help stimulate the calf to breathe.
"We can give a little bicarbonate IV and some epinephrine or other drugs that are very effective within that first 5 minutes. Dexamethasone and breathing stimulants like doxapram are very effective after pulling the calf," he explains.
In the past, all you could do was give artificial respiration, blowing into one nostril as you hold the other one shut. Sometimes that works, but in other instances it's a struggle to try to revive a comatose calf that's not breathing. These drugs can make a difference, especially when trying to revive a calf that was delivered backward.
"Clear the fluid out of the airways,” Miesner instructs. He positions the calf upright, resting on its sternum (breastbone) rather than lying flat.
“When I was a kid and we had a backward calf that wasn't breathing, we'd hang the calf up by the hind legs to drain the fluid out of his airways," Miesner recalls. "Now we've learned that most of the fluid that comes out when we hang them up is from the stomach. Whenever a calf is hanging like that, the weight of his intestines is pressing on the diaphragm and it's harder for him to take a breath." Hanging a calf by the hind legs inhibits breathing, rather than helping it.
"It's better to lie him on his sternum, tap him on the chest, and tickle his nostril with a piece of straw to get him to sneeze/cough and take a breath," Miesner explains. If airways are full of mucus, a squeeze/suction bulb can be handy to suck that out. Even a turkey baster works to get mucus out of his nose and throat so he can take a breath.
"If the calf is comatose and won't start breathing, an oxygen mask works, but I often just put a breathing tube into the trachea (windpipe) and give some good breaths that way to expand the lungs," says Miesner.
"Even if all you can do is breathe into the nostril, position the calf so the air you blow in will go into the lungs rather than the stomach," he cautions. "It's like CPR in people; we position the head so the esophagus is closed off and the airway is open. It's harder to do in a calf, but if we extend the head upward as we breathe into his nostril, hopefully this will close off the throat and open the airway. The air will always follow the path of least resistance, and you don't want to be blowing it into the stomach."
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