The Lord blessed us with our first calf last week, but the blessing came somewhat disguised. Let me digress…
Our Holstein-Angus cow gave birth to her first calf last Wednesday, and being the rebel she is, she didn’t do a good job cleaning him up resulting in a massive Fly Strike attack that quickly spread and made the newborn too week to stand of nurse.
When we realized the calf was infected, and had projectile liquid scours, we gave him 1,000 mg of amoxicillin orally, which is all we had on hand, and started to hydrate him since the antibiotic would likely cause more scours.
The electrolyte solution we used consisted of:
- 2 Quarts Water
- 1 TBS Salt
- 2 TBS Baking Soda
- 4 TBS Corn Syrup
- 1 TBS Beef Broth Concentrate
Using a 60ml catheter tip syringe, we force fed him about 2 cups each time, 4 times a day and milked the cow to get as much colostrum as we could to feed the calf when he was hydrated.
Next, since we didn’t know if he had worms or not, we treated him with a Corid based solution, and gave him 1.5oz of diluted Corid for 5 days.
We also cleaned him up, which was absolutely disgusting since his south end and genitals were infected with fly larvae (maggots). Once we got rid of most larvae, we sprayed his backside and tummy with with Wound Kote, an antiseptic germicidal dressing then poured Ivermectin, the parasiticide on his back line, from his neck to his tail to kill remaining fly larvae.
We introduced his mother’s milk 2 days after we started hydration.
The calf went from lame and near dead to frolicking, running and jumping around in less than 2 days.
He started to nurse on his own and is now a little pest who runs away from us each time we try to give him his last few doses of Corid solution…
We almost lost the little guy, and we give praise to God for the learning experience and for the opportunity to share with you the result of our battle with Fly Strike. #TGBATG