Bottle Baby problems!

[abbleelaw18]

Okay guys, I am new to this, (all of it!) and I have a bottle baby heifer we have been bottle feeding since birth. She will be 4 weeks old tomorrow (Thursday 02/01/18). She has started having some blood in her stool, the stool is firm, not runny, but I have no clue what this could be. She has had one dose of antibiotic shot behind the ear for a cold...She is sucking good and doesn't seem to weak. Also**, she has patent urachus. We have decided against surgery, because it's not a good outcome but i have asked two local vets. One says, stitch the naval area and cinch it tight and pray it doesn't get infected and the other says to repeatedly cauterize the urachus with either 7% Iodine or silver nitrate applicators. Please help! This is my first bottle baby I have raised on my own and my little girl is in love with her (and so am I!) Thanks in advance!

 

[Al R]

@sandywil90 your good at this sort of stuff, my opinion wouldn’t be productive.

 

[abitdaft]

@bovine

 

[sandywil90]

First off, did she have enough colostrum as a newborn (this is vital to her as it contains antibodies (igG) to support her immune system)?
If she's drinking as normal then that's half the battle. In regards to blood in the stool, your best off taking a sample of poo straight from her butt to the vets for the vet to diagnose, that way your treating the specific problem and not taking a guess.
If the calf has got a hernia, then best thing to do is follow your vets advice (my vet is fantastic and I have soo much faith in her, which makes the perfect relationship!), after all they're the experts!
We had a cow calve premature before Christmas, this lim bull calf (now named Brian) was literally an hour off death, I stuck him in the foot well of the land Rover on top of some plastic feed bags. Left him there for about an hour, mixed up 3L of colostrum and he drank it all!! It was a miracle, he was that poor he couldn't get up to walk! So for the next 3 days Brian lived in the kitchen in front of the fire.. Brian is now 6 and a half weeks old!!

 

[abbleelaw18]

@sandywil90 Yes, she did. We had to pull her as well from a first time momma and she rejected her at first. We left her there for two days with the mother *BUT we tubed her and gave colostrum many times before we brought her home. We wanted to make sure the momma wouldn't come back for her. We had to tube her for next week because she would not suck, but fast forward to now, she sucks fine and had plenty of colostrum in first 24 -48 hours and so on. (My husband did this so I don't know exact amounts). She drinks great, ready for the bottle every time she hears us coming! It's not a hernia.. it's just where the urachus from the umbilical cord to the bladder didn't close off before birth or at birth and it leaking urine ... so when she teetee's, she does out of both ends. Thank you for your advice!

 

[bovine]

@bovine

Can anyone who's better at subtlety than me, tell the OP it's buggered?

 

[Water Wheel]

Patent urachus: A surgery to repair a bladder defect. In an open (patent) urachus, there is an opening between the bladder and the umbilicus. The opening usually closes before birth. An open urachus typically occurs in infants.

Failure for the lumen of the urachus to be filled in leaves a patent (open) urachus. The telltale sign is leakage of urine through the umbilicus. A patent urachus needs to be surgically removed.

I didn't have a clue what a Patent urachus was.

 

[GenuineRisk]

Couldn’t advise re calves but I had a foal with this once - he had the surgery and was fine but slightly different value financially to a calf,...

 

[abitdaft]

Can anyone who's better at subtlety than me, tell the OP it's buggered?

Sorry, didn't have the heart. Thought it might sound better coming from a vet.

 

[Philip Watkins]

....

I didn't have a clue what a Patent urachus was.

I had to look it up as well.

 

[abbleelaw18]

Our vet is going to cinch stitch the naval which usually works to close the urachus and the blood is coming from too much powder milk, so they say. Thank you for all of your advice. My baby (Hannah Bell) is doing great.

 

[Alicecow]

My bottle baby passed a bit of blood for a while when she was little (she'll be 9 next week , my avatar is her calf ) I think a lot of them do it, just keeping an eye on yours. Hope the stitching works
I presume you are in the USA, going by your accent (& the fact that you got the date the wrong way round )

Good luck with her, she's very pretty

 

[abbleelaw18]

My bottle baby passed a bit of blood for a while when she was little (she'll be 9 next week , my avatar is her calf ) I think a lot of them do it, just keeping an eye on yours. Hope the stitching works
I presume you are in the USA, going by your accent (& the fact that you got the date the wrong way round )

Good luck with her, she's very pretty

Yes, I am in southern USA. Thank you! We started weakening her milk today so we'll see how that goes!

 

[Alicecow]

Isn't it a bit soon to do that?

 

[abbleelaw18]

Isn't it a bit soon to do that?

Well, we had to because she can't digest the amount of powdered milk she was getting. She still gets the same amount of fluid just not as much milk powder.

 

[Alicecow]

Ok. As with any baby, you have to do what your instinct tells you (& your vet, for good measure)