Misfitmorgan's Journal - That Summer Dust

farmerjan

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Is the Dumor all milk ? I have never used it. I only feed an all milk milk replacer. Soy can cause terrible stomach upset for the newer calves. They will be able to tolerate it more after they get bigger.
My milk replacer is a local brand for this area as it is sold at our local feed mill with a "generic" label. Can't tell you the name, as I really can't remember it. I won't deviate from it... regardless of how cheap or on sale another brand is.... unless it is Land-O-Lakes. That is my second favorite brand of milk replacer. It is not cheap but I have not had any problems with either. Some of the all milk ones don't smell as good as other brands either....

My suggestion is to take him off all replacer for 2 days, electrolytes only, several 1/2 bottles instead of 2 whole bottles if possible.... and get it all cleaned out of his system. Use a gel tube type of probiotics and go back to the milk replacer at half the amount, ie. 1/2 bottle, for one feeding, then see... go to a 3/4 bottle next feeding, and then a full bottle if the scours slow down/stop.
Another old trick is add 1-2 raw eggs to the bottle.... helps to stop them up a bit and adds protein that is easily digested. And I have often used people immodium for slowing the scours and getting them firmed up... Anything with an antibiotic is going to cause more upset to the gut tract.
Sometimes calves get the squirts and it is really hard to get them stopped. The problem is , wherever they came from has "bugs" that are different than what you have on your farm... and then they went through the stockyards which exposed then to 9 million different "bugs" and their systems get overwhelmed even if they got colostrum.

I do not buy calves at the stockyards anymore.....been there done that for too many years. They have 2 strikes against them just by going through the sale.
 

misfitmorgan

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Is the Dumor all milk ? I have never used it. I only feed an all milk milk replacer. Soy can cause terrible stomach upset for the newer calves. They will be able to tolerate it more after they get bigger.
My milk replacer is a local brand for this area as it is sold at our local feed mill with a "generic" label. Can't tell you the name, as I really can't remember it. I won't deviate from it... regardless of how cheap or on sale another brand is.... unless it is Land-O-Lakes. That is my second favorite brand of milk replacer. It is not cheap but I have not had any problems with either. Some of the all milk ones don't smell as good as other brands either....

My suggestion is to take him off all replacer for 2 days, electrolytes only, several 1/2 bottles instead of 2 whole bottles if possible.... and get it all cleaned out of his system. Use a gel tube type of probiotics and go back to the milk replacer at half the amount, ie. 1/2 bottle, for one feeding, then see... go to a 3/4 bottle next feeding, and then a full bottle if the scours slow down/stop.
Another old trick is add 1-2 raw eggs to the bottle.... helps to stop them up a bit and adds protein that is easily digested. And I have often used people immodium for slowing the scours and getting them firmed up... Anything with an antibiotic is going to cause more upset to the gut tract.
Sometimes calves get the squirts and it is really hard to get them stopped. The problem is , wherever they came from has "bugs" that are different than what you have on your farm... and then they went through the stockyards which exposed then to 9 million different "bugs" and their systems get overwhelmed even if they got colostrum.

I do not buy calves at the stockyards anymore.....been there done that for too many years. They have 2 strikes against them just by going through the sale.
Thanks for the info @farmerjan you are right.....soy concentrate base! We wont be feeding that ever again. The suckle select we get is non-soy but I just had not made that connection. We will try your feeding suggestions!

Our first two bottle calves from the auction did fantastic. They had scours for two days then cleaned up and never had a problem again. That was on suckle select.
 

misfitmorgan

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You need a nurse cow like @farmerjan has!
We are working up to it Bay! lol

The first two calves we got are the only cows I've ever owned. DH grow up around cows, working in barns, but he didnt have any part in deciding the feed and he was only 12-17yrs old so missed a lot in cow management. Atm the calves are far cheaper to learn on then a lactating cow. If we do well we get the bonus of a nice check and meat in our freezer at the end.
 

farmerjan

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Glad you found out that it is soy.... you will be able to incorporate it into their milk after they get to the 6 weeks or so stage, so can use it up... mix it in like 1/3 to 2/3 all milk to just use it up and they should do fine when they are that old they will also be eating so their natural gut bacteria will be working better.

I would just do electrolytes for 24 hours since you realize it is most likely the soy based causing the problem.... then try the good milk replacer
 

misfitmorgan

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Glad you found out that it is soy.... you will be able to incorporate it into their milk after they get to the 6 weeks or so stage, so can use it up... mix it in like 1/3 to 2/3 all milk to just use it up and they should do fine when they are that old they will also be eating so their natural gut bacteria will be working better.

I would just do electrolytes for 24 hours since you realize it is most likely the soy based causing the problem.... then try the good milk replacer
I will do that Jan, thank you again!
 

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