# Skinny calves



## Fairlight (Jul 22, 2009)

I am at my wits end. I am terrified of hurting my calves without knowing it. We lost Pumpkin, my son's first pet and calf from bacterial pneumonia and now the rest of the 4 out of the 5 calves we got from the cattle sales are growing higher but definitely not wider. They are incredibly skinny. We had stopped their milk replacer on Monday and they would have been about 10 weeks old then, or rather 9 weeks since we went to the cattle sales. They were tiny when we got them poor little darlings. 

But they are soooo skinny. We havebeautiful long pastures that are browned off in winter, plenty of roughage! and we feed them grain every day to get them to come into their pen at night. I fill their water troughs morning and night and drenched them 6 weeks ago. I am drenching them again this weekend.

They sleep out in the open pastures in a pen I made because they ate all my herbs etc in the house yard over night. It gets to about 10 degrees overnight. I am sorry I do not know what this is in Farenheight. 

Any advice would be appreciated. I have searched the net and books but can't find out anything. There  is 1 swiss brown and 2 freisans, 2 jersey x ?. They are the sweetest animals and so tame. My children often go and sit with them when they are sleeping in the sun in the paddocks and pat and rub their little horns etc. they can do this before they get to big and possibly hurt them. One even walked into our house and had a look around before we realised the door and been left open and we had a visitor! 

Many thanks

Fairlight


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## cw (Jul 22, 2009)

its hard to say without pics if they are too skinney or not,
 i  always thought young calves looked real skinney anyways, whats there weight?
is there any problem with scours?


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## Farmer Kitty (Jul 22, 2009)

Pics would help to determine what kind of shape they are in. That way we can make sure your not comparing beef calves to dairy calves, that would be like comparing apples and oranges.

It would also give us a look at them to see if we can see anything that sets off alarm bells to us. 

As for the conversions, I'll be back. 

Back. 

10C is 50F. We have a conversion chart as a sticky in the "Me, My Herd, My Family" section.


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## she-earl (Jul 22, 2009)

Do you see them chewing their cuds?  When they stand up, do you see them stretching?  If you see them chewing their cuds and stretching, that is a sign that they are feeling good.  If they aren't stretching and are not aggressively chewing their cuds, I would be concerned that there is something going on.


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## Imissmygirls (Jul 22, 2009)

10 week old calves should not be fat. However, unless they are eating freshgrowing spring grass, I'd want my dairy beefs( which is what yours are)of that age to be eating 5 # of grain a day each.  
Jerseys are going to be thin. Not much meat on them, ever. Holsteins likewise can be quite dairy, although some are heavier than others. Tiny Holsteins from a stockyard could be more of a dairy build.  Heavy stock is usually snapped up by professionals.  Swiss should be stocky and not dainty.


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## kstaven (Jul 23, 2009)

Dairy calves are pretty boney.  But pics would help a lot.


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## Fairlight (Jul 23, 2009)

Hi again,
I will take pictures tomorrow as it is night time here. Then I will post them tomorrow evening.  

Thanks to all who read my post and posted replies. I am really really touched. I don't have a good track record with animals I am afraid. Our Alpaca Bruce, got Barbers Pole and died and we lost 4 sheep to wild dogs, the kitten impaled itself on a fence post and got an infection into its lungs and had to be euthaniased and the bird keeled over one morning, we had two heelers that had to be put down.......boy o boy......

The cows seems to eat a fair lot of their time when they are not snoozing in the sun. We are in the middle of winter here but the days rarely get under 20 degrees which is 68 degrees fahrenheit.  THey do chew their cud while standing and while lying, both. They seem very contented and not scouring, just skinny but it seems that it just might be the breed of cow. 

Many thanks

Fairlight


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## Farmer Kitty (Jul 23, 2009)

They do sound content. 







 Sorry about all the animals you've lost.


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## Imissmygirls (Jul 23, 2009)

If you have animals, you lose them. It seems to be a fact of life. I think this is why nature has litters of kittens and puppies twice a year and calves every year, and hens set a dozen eggs at a time.  Only the strong... and intelligent... survive. 

And some supposedly intelligent cows I have known have found very difficult ways to kill themselves.

Or maybe we are hexed!


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## kryptoniteqhs (Aug 2, 2009)

1. i would say to continue giving the calves their milk.....dont wean them yet, even if they are eating

2. if they really are too skinny, try calf manna added to their grain


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