Betty and Dave

It’s time I officially introduced the two latest characters to our roll call here… our poddies! Betty and Dave…

https://www.facebook.com/BushBabeofOz/videos/588369344954556/

Betty is a few days older than Dave – her mother died suddenly after giving birth and suffering a prolapsed uterus (a condition that sometimes happens in humans too). She had already had her ‘first suck’ so had some colostrum in her system, making her reasonably strong.

Dave, however, had not been able to drink and required a bit more initial TLC. His Mum went into calf while she was still on her OWN mother – basically a teenage pregnancy. We noticed her in the weaning mob and kept a close eye on her, bringing her into the yards as she got closer to her due date.

She managed to give birth to him pretty well (like most Brangus calves, he was pretty small at birth) but she hadn’t ‘bagged up’ (produced much milk) and we decided to take over the parenting role in order to let her recover fully.

Both took to the bottle (with a special milk powder formula) pretty well – Dave was a good little sucker right from the get-go. Betty was a fusser, until she worked out she would miss out on her share unless she got serious!

Having two has been helpful, as they both have company (and comfort to snuggle up to) all the time, and if one is feeling a bit down or unwell, the other encourages and prompts them to keep feeding and interacting. They need three feeds a day, so it’s quite intensive and makes leaving the house for any length of time a bit tricky (thankfully we have a lovely gentleman who comes to stay with Axel whenever we go away, and took on the job for us for a few days on the school holidays).

We had a bit of a fright with Dave in their first few days – arriving home from a few hours away at the local races to find him curled up and limp. His little navel had become a bit infected, so we gave him some antibiotics and I rubbed him all over with a warm damp towel (simulating as close as I could a mother’s tongue wash). He soon perked up and showed a bit of interest (much to our huge relief). He is a champion drinker and likes a scratch but likes his own space too.

Betty, on the other hand, is shameless. Not content with Dave being the only one in the spotlight, Betty gave us her fair share of worry recently too. A couple of weeks ago, we discovered her looking quite swollen in the belly. The next morning she seemed okay and still hungry, but the condition reappeared a few days later. This time the bloating was quite marked, with signs of a very upset tummy (see how nicely I am trying to put that?).

Of course it was a Friday afternoon, and our regular vet was on holidays, so I looked up the symptoms and was quite alarmed at the description of the symptoms and prognosis:

The proliferating bacteria damage the gut and it shuts down, causing a sudden buildup of gas and pain. If the calf is not treated immediately, toxins leak through the damaged gut wall into the bloodstream, creating septicemia (toxins throughout the body start attacking various body organs). The calf goes into shock and soon dies — unless this condition can be reversed by appropriate treatment.

https://countrysidenetwork.com/daily/livestock/cattle/how-to-treat-colicky-calf-bloat/

Yeah – so that wasn’t very comforting… after a few phonecalls to try to track down castor oil (which was recommended) we trawled our vet supply cupboard and found a bottle of liquid paraffin (marked ‘for bloat in cattle’). After much discussion with those in the know, we figured it couldn’t hurt, and dosed her up. To say Betty didn’t appreciate our nursing efforts would be an understatement – apparently liquid paraffin tastes rubbish. After being checked a couple of times overnight, she was back in business the next day – although we did reduce the amount of milk we were feeding them and tried to get them to eat more of their calf crumbles.

And while the bloat did set Betty back a bit and her digestive system took a little while to recover, she is doing pretty well now. Always the enthusiastic first to the calf feeders, she does remind me a bit of our infamous guts-ache Bay Leaf!

The following series was taken about three days after her attack, and you can see a bit of evidence of the ‘upset tummy’ still… but it hasn’t reduced her zest for life too much.

This series records their first real foray OUT of the pool/poddy yard…

They are pretty cute, and are now being let out each day after their morning milk to fraternize with some cows and calves we have in the house paddock. They need to learn a bit of normal herd behaviour, for when they join the weaners (in May) and become ‘teenagers’ ready to go into the world/paddock on their own. They love going out each morning and love coming back into their ‘safe space’ overnight. We are calling it Being Bovines 101.

In the meantime, this Mama will keep the milk and calf crumbles up to them, scratch their ears and their backs, make a fuss when they spill their dinner over themselves and make sure they avoid bloat (fingers crossed).

😉