all of us are exhausted tho...nicole thinks tomorrow because it is sunday will be even busier (oh gawd!!)
we all met tons of great people and everyone seemed to really like what we do...we needed twice as many tour guides tho..oh laura and lana how could vegas compare to giving tours at saints..please come home before tomorrow????
the vet came out to see todd again today..he really is not doing well. the vet said it is because the farmers sometimes don't bother to let the little bull calves have that one feeding of colostrom that they need so much...bull calves go straight to slaughter so they aren't expected to need their mothers immunity in order to survive.
she gave him both an anti inflamatory injection to bring his temperature down and another long acting antibiotic and will come and check him again tomorrow. she wants us to take out one formula feed each day and give him an electrolyte feed instead. we will just have to keep our fingers crossed that todd will fight hard to live and make it thru this difficult time for him.
little emily is doing much better, she is bright and perky and venturing out of the barn and hanging out with joy and percy (with a fence in between)...she wants to be with them and they look like they would like her to be too.
oh my goodness, percy just loves his joy. tonight he was grooming her neck just like he used to do to spot and jeanette..he is such a very lovely guy.
the dogs are totally beat....they had a TON of exercise, keeping up with all of the many tours. and little reggie has gone home on a two week trial with mj so hopefully that goes really well. and caspar has taken over cuddles role in keeping up with me...he matched me step for step today and then still had enough get up and go to chase the cats tonight.
wish us luck tomorrow that we can get thru one more day. and if you didn't have a chance to get up here yet...try tomorrow we still have a TON of food to share!!!
As a lactation consultant I can attest that those colostrum feeds are absolutely incredibly important in sealing the gut and priming the immune system.
It may not be too late though.
You can buy bovine colostrum (which is unfortunately manufactured in the factory farming process - talk about dilemmas. It's the same process that gives you little bulls which go straight to slaughter). Hwvr, it may really help him.
You also need <b>raw cow milk</b> for this boy, not any formula. Raw cow milk is avail in the lower mainland - though it's currently not quite legal for people to sell it for human consumption but I know some alternative folks who do use it so it's out there. Anyway - for human babies, the best milk is always mama milk, followed by donated milk and last on the list is any manufactured 'milk replacement/formula/artificial milk'. So I'm thinking for cow babies, the optimal feeding looks like this: the best milk is own mama's cow milk, then donated raw cow milk, pasteurized whole cow milk, and then any manufactured formula. A baby cow's system is designed to work with cow milk.
So try to seek out raw milk for this guy. If you want me to ask around, let me know.
Also, be sure to calmly touch and pet him lots. Immunity is also stimulated by the mother's caressing & touching. Infants who are not touched enough in SCN will not do as well as those who are.