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Raising an Orphan Calf

Veterinarian gives tips for bottle-feeding older orphaned calves.

Many ranchers have raised calves on bottles (an orphan, a twin, a heifer’s calf that isn’t accepted by its mother, etc.) or bottle-fed the calf until it could be grafted onto a cow that loses her calf. It’s easy to bottle-feed a newborn or young calf that’s hungry and looking for a mama. More challenging is the 1- or 2-month-old calf that’s been out with the herd all its life and suddenly loses its mom. Freak things happen, such as a cow getting over on her back in a ditch, dying from larkspur poisoning, being killed by predators, developing bloat and a variety of other scenarios. This leaves you with an orphan that might be semi-wild but too young to go without milk or high-quality feed.

Bottle feeding may be necessary for some orphaned calves.

Ray Randall, a veterinarian near Bridger, Mont., says some of those calves are good enough robbers to survive out with the herd — sneaking up to nurse alongside the calf of another cow. They are comfortable with the herd and seem to manage, though they might be smaller than the other calves at weaning time.

“If they are only a couple months old when they lose Mom and you can find a way to get them home from the range or in from the pasture, they might do all right even without milk, if you can put them on good-quality hay and some concentrate, like grain or calf pellets. You might not need to put them on milk replacer at that age. Milk replacer is expensive, and it can also be a hassle to get the calf sucking a bottle if he’s afraid of people,” says Randall.

Instead, you might put the calf with an older animal for security with some good-quality feed.

“If you have a little herd of cows on good pasture, sometimes another cow will adopt the orphan. If that happens, the motherless calf will do fine,” says Randall. “If the orphan is very young and you need to bottle-feed it, you have to find a way to capture it without chasing it.”

He suggests bringing the calf home or into a corral with a small group of cattle.

“The last thing you want to do is stress the calf trying to catch it,” cautions Randall. “It might get pneumonia, and you’ll lose the calf.”

If the orphan doesn’t have good pasture and a cow to rob from, you must find a way to feed it milk or milk replacer. Some will suck a bottle on the first try if hunger overcomes their fear, while others must be force-fed a time or two until they realize that people mean food. You can also start offering a high-quality concentrate diet. The calf’s rumen isn’t developed enough yet to handle much forage, but a young calf can digest grain or a more concentrated feed like calf pellets. Once the calf starts eating enough concentrate feed, you can back off on the milk.

“Depending on when the calf lost its mother, it may have already been vaccinated (at branding time). In that case, it will be okay, but if there is any doubt, you could give another vaccination with one of the seven-way clostridials for adequate protection,” Randall says.

Keep the calf in a clean environment, he advises, because it will be vulnerable to diseases like coccidiosis or calf scours.

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Editor’s Note: Heather Smith Thomas is a freelance writer and a cattlewoman from Salmon, Idaho.



 



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