Bottle Babies
Bummer Lambs, Calves, Goat Kids and Others
by Ida Livingston of Davis City, IA
Our human desire to love and be loved often finds warm reciprocation with animals who generally are not as mouthy as people tend to be. Love may be immortal, but animals, like ourselves, are not. If it breathes then it can stop. No life is entirely lost if something is learned in the passing.
A farmer stewards the lives of a range of animals, each with a unique set of needs and vulnerabilities. I have raised and loved many animals on the farms that I have lived on in my life. Some that I had loved, have been unnecessarily lost along the way by mistakes that I have made. Some from my ignorance and some from accidents I could not have anticipated. I have learned the importance of acknowledging my loss, forgiving myself, and then moving on a wiser person.
Sometimes losses on a farm result in orphaned animals that suddenly need extra care. Hand raising these are a great opportunity for creating excellent flock or herd leaders: tame animals that come when they are called. Do mind the habits you teach them. Goats dearly love roses, if they know where they are, will have a defoliating effect on them that will recur every time they escape the fence.
Hand raised rams, bulls and billies make a poor choice for herd\flock sires as they did not develop a healthy respect and differential relationship with people. As they mature and their instincts kick in, they are quicker to display direct aggression towards people than those that are not tame.
Lambs
When my family moved to Tennessee we developed friendships with other local farmers. Our family’s milk cows contributed to why people would bring their orphaned animals for us to raise. They cost a lot of time and effort to raise and certainly were not a profitable venture but it was a free, hands-on education.
Since there was no way to pay for the hours that went into them, the farmer often left them with me, saying, “if it survives it’s yours.” In time though, I would insist that the bottle lambs had to go back whether I was paid or not. I had a bad habit of becoming too attached to them to make practical long-term decisions about them. I did not need a large flock of aging (pet) hair sheep wethers.
Lambert was a ram lamb that I raised to return. I kept him for a little while, even after he was weaned. When I called the cows to be milked, Lambert would come to my stool and literally crawl in my lap to be held while we waited for the cows. My sister, Abby asked if he wasn’t too big for that as she watched how he draped over either side of my lap even with his legs tucked. I wrapped my arms around the 40 lb lamb and he laid his head on my shoulder. I told Abby, “my days with him are limited, soon he’ll go away and I’ll never see him again, so no, he’s not too big for this.”
Habits
The lambs that I raised were named in alphabetical order so I could easily remember who they were and when they showed up on the timeline. Amy came first, a tiny little lamb, the smallest of triplets. She was so cute that Mom would hold her in her lap in the rocking chair for her evening feeding those first few nights. Then Amy was set in her box by the stove for the night. This was just enough of a routine that Amy was convinced it had to continue for her (or anyone else) to be able to sleep. The first night that Amy did not get rocking-chair-lap-time before bed, she refused to settle down in her box. She jumped out and would bleat frantically at the bottom of the stairs until Mom came down and gave her a minute of lap time in the rocker. This continued until Amy moved out of the house.
Benji was a robust young lamb who learned a trick from my then 7-year-old sister Abby. She called me over to show how when she put her hand in front of his face, he would instinctively butt it. This was a cute trick she did a lot with him. After a while he’d just run up and butt her when he saw her. This is cute enough with a little lamb.
Benji did not stay little and so he moved to the barn. One snowy winter day, someone left the barnyard gate open and 3 opportunistic sheep escaped to the orchard. There, Benji spotted and recognized Abby and knocked her down and rolled her around in the snow. A few months later when I got Felix and Galeo, I put my arm around Abby and asked her if she wanted to teach them that cute head-butting trick… Felix and Galeo missed out on that one.
Colostrum
Colostrum is a blend of enzymes, antibodies and nutrition packaged in a mother’s new milk. It is designed to jump start a newborn’s immune system and overall health. Without colostrum, a newborn animal can die within a week. Between a vulnerable immune system and poor overall condition, it can be a real struggle to keep these animals alive.
Colostrum is essential for newborn mammals in the first few days after birth. Ideally, they would have it for the entire 5-7 days their mother produces it. This is not always possible. Try to ensure that they get at least 2-3 feedings of colostrum.
It is extremely helpful to have frozen colostrum on hand. For those who have a freezer I recommend keeping at least a gallon of frozen colostrum at all times as long as your farm has animals that will be delivering. Frozen colostrum keeps in the freezer for up to a year before it should be replaced. Cow’s milk colostrum works well for lambs and goat kids. I recommend freezing it in pint or quart sized containers, so it is easier to thaw as needed.
There are times when you have no fresh or frozen colostrum. Most veterinary clinics and often farm supply stores will carry some sort of powdered colostrum substitute. This can be rehydrated and used as needed according to its printed instructions. If you live in proximity to a dairy, you can inquire whether they have fresh or frozen colostrum that you could buy.
I have had calves and lambs brought to me to raise that did not have colostrum yet. I have made it a practice to give them colostrum whether I was told they’d already had it or not. It is very difficult to ensure their survival if they have had no colostrum yet.
Early on I had a couple lambs brought to me, Felix and Galeo, they were the same age but from different mothers. Each was a triplet. Often triplet lambs and goat kids struggle because their mothers only have two teats to share between 3 lambs. Some farmers will pull off a triplet to hand raise so the others are healthier.
Felix had colostrum already but Galeo did not. Felix was the picture of health and Galeo had a classic case of failure-to-thrive. I did not have any colostrum to give him and was still in the learn-it-the-hard-way phase of my education. I had to force feed him with an eye dropper every 2-3 hours around the clock to keep him from starving. I think the only thing keeping him alive was his love for his companion Felix.
After a couple weeks I was exhausted and didn’t know what to do. His condition had not improved. He was a sorry-looking bag of bones that seemed determined to die. I decided to let him go and did not feed him for 24 hours. To my amazement, he did not die in that amount of time. In fact, he developed an appetite and actually started voluntarily taking the bottle too. Ultimately, he survived and made a full recovery. However, never in his life was he as healthy as Felix.
Bottle/Bucket Feeding
When I was growing up, we bottle fed, or more accurately, bucket fed our calves. After 3 days we removed the calf from its mother and kept it in a box stall. The cow and calf would bawl for a few days but soon adjust to the new routine. We found that if we left the calf on longer than 3 days it took them much longer to adjust.
The calf would be bucket fed morning and night. We would take warm milk straight from the cow to the calf pen. There I would back the calf into a corner and dip my fingers in the bucket to coat them with milk and then stick one or two into the calf’s mouth and it would suck on them. Then I would lower it into the milk and the calf would drink the milk while sucking on my fingers. It is the trick to get them to start drinking out of a bucket.
As soon as I could manage it, I would try easing my fingers out of their mouth so the calf would just drink on its own. But I have had many calves who refused to drink on their own without sucking on my finger. These took weeks to get them to drink independently. An easy calf takes only a couple sessions.
The first few days I ended up wearing most of the milk. The calf doesn’t understand what is going on or how to cooperate. It is also the calf’s natural instinct to butt the udder when it wants more milk. Some calves are worse than others. This butting instinct, with a bucket, can certainly splash milk all over a person. For this, the bottle is easier. But then you have to maintain bottle equipment, and buckets are easy come by and wash so we usually just did the bucket method for calves.
After about 3 weeks or so we began keeping a little grain and hay in the pen for the calf to nibble on if it wished. I would also keep a bucket of water in there too. Dairy calves can technically be weaned as young as 6 weeks old. There are those who have weaned them at 4 or 5 weeks, but it is simply not good for them. The young weaning age is usually done when a person has been buying expensive milk replacer. I personally believe they should be weaned no younger than 8 weeks old. In practice, Khoke and I wean our calves no earlier than 4 months old. This makes very strong, healthy calves. We do this with calves we leave parttime on their mother.
For lambs and goat kids I always just used infant baby bottles. These work great and they are easy to get any time and are inexpensive. I used regular infant bottle nipples and just opened the hole a little with a knife so that the milk came out quicker. I don’t want to open it too much so they don’t choke on the milk, I just open it up a little at a time until it is about right.
We had friends who kept goats to milk. They separated the kids from the nannies and instead of bottle feeding them, they trained them to drink from a shallow pan. This is like the bucket feeding I do with calves.
Cold milk really isn’t good for calves, goat kids, or lambs. Warm the milk to 100 degrees. Do not overheat it. Milk has enzymes in it to help the calf digest the milk. If you heat the milk to too high of a temperature, it kills these enzymes, and the calf can become constipated. So, if you accidentally heated the milk too hot (120 degrees or more), discard the milk and reheat new.
Scours
Scours is diarrhea and it is a very serious concern with bottle fed animals. Scours rarely affects young that are raised on their mothers. It is usually a result from stress, making them more vulnerable to bacteria, viruses and other scour-inducing factors. Out-of-control scours causes dehydration and loss of electrolytes that can kill calves and lambs very quickly.
A bad case of scours is difficult to treat. It is the biggest threat to calves under a month old. Usually, they are reduced to nearly starvation rations, sometimes taken off milk completely and given only electrolytes. Basically, a bovine Gatorade. The hope is to starve the harmful bacteria while keeping the calf alive. This can help when the gut bacteria are out of whack, or the calf has a bacterial infection. The trouble is scours are not always caused by bacteria. There are multiple causes. The actual cause of death from scours is usually dehydration.
If it is bacteria induced scours, then an antibiotic is administered, and electrolyte diet is what is usually done. Viral scours need symptomatic treatment, which is very similar to bacterial scours. Only, antibiotics do not help viral infections, they only help manage any following secondary bacterial infections.
There are occasions when scours are seen in calves that are kept with their mothers. It can be caused temporarily in dairy calves that are getting too much milk. This can cause diarrhea. Full production dairy cows give more milk than their calves should drink. If left on the cow naturally, the calf’s lack of ability to keep up with the milk would dry the cow’s milk production up to where the calf could handle it.
I have also seen it on calves who are nursing on badly soiled udders. It doesn’t usually happen when they nurse on an occasional badly soiled udder, but if the cow has a bad habit or nowhere clean to lay then this regular problem will affect the calf adversely. The teats do not normally have to be cleaned for the calf as they are equipped to handle a normal amount of dirt, but when the udder is caked with mud or manure, this can lead to scours.
If you buy calves to bottle feed from a dairy, often these calves are highly stressed and need to be fed carefully. Tell yourself, “Hungry is healthy”. At least to begin with. I would give one of these calves only 8 ounces of milk upon arrival home. A couple hours later, give it another 8 ounces. Give it 8 oz. of milk every 2-3 hours for the first day. Unless the calf is in danger of actual starvation it should be able to fast overnight. In the morning check and see how firm its stool is. If the stool is watery with diarrhea, it is developing scours and you need to cut its milk back. It is okay if it is a little soft, just not watery. Keep a close eye on this. Scours is the leading cause of death in young calves.
Don’t forget to be giving the calf colostrum. It is best if it already had it from its mother. If you do not know, do not assume that it has. Hopefully you have some frozen colostrum you can use. Some dairies are thoughtful and keep colostrum frozen for those who ask for it. Don’t be afraid to ask. If you do not have colostrum, you can buy a colostrum replacer from veterinarians and some farm supply stores. I like my calves to have at least a half-gallon of colostrum over the course of 2 days. More is better. I have not always had that much, and I work with what I have.
If the stool is okay, you can begin to slowly increase how much you feed them. If you can only feed them twice a day because of work, still do not feed them more than a pint at a time the 2nd day. Slowly increase the amount over the course of the next few days. If the stool becomes watery, back off how much you are giving immediately. I try to work it up to about a half-gallon of milk twice a day.
If you see signs of scours you can also give the calf some prepared slippery elm. Simmer 3 tbls of slippery elm powder (or a large pinch of slippery elm bark shavings) and simmer it in a cup of water until the liquid develops its characteristic slimy texture. Let it cool and then with a 12 cc syringe give the calf about a cup of the slippery elm mixture twice a day. This can be in addition to whatever milk they are getting.
If you are in a bind and do not have slippery elm on hand, I have used Pepto Bismol before as well. It can help. Use it as you would for a child of similar weight.
After I feed the calf, I like to rub her vigorously. Rub her back, neck, up and down her legs. This promotes circulation and stimulates its digestive system. I have often had them deliver a bowel movement right after a rubdown.
The above was written mainly about calves but it all applies to lambs and goat kids, you just have to reduce doses to suit their smaller sizes.
Homemade Electrolyte Solutions
If you need electrolytes right now and your local stores are not open, here is a couple recipes to get you through.
Recipe A:
9 c. water
2 tbls. sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbls. molasses
1 generous tsp. salt
Recipe B:
4c. Water
1 tbsp salt
¼ c. corn syrup or moistened sugar
1 tbls baking soda
Multiple Calf Caution
If you have multiple calves penned together that you are bottle feeding, you’ll need to keep an eye on them. These calves have a habit of sucking on each other, often on the ears or underparts. This can cause chaffing, chapping and additional stress. Worse than the ears, calves can suck on the vulnerable umbilical site. If this site has not healed completely, it can cause an infection that can kill the calf.
Grafting
A cow will not normally accept a calf that is not her own. One must be careful in this process because a cow can injure or even kill a calf she has not accepted. If you have bought a calf, I would personally wait a week and make sure the calf is stable before attempting to graft it onto a cow.
One of the best ways to graft a calf onto a cow that is not its mother, is to pen them in close quarters together. In a relatively small pen, panel off a corner securely for the calf and put him in it. The calf must not be able to escape, nor must the cow be able to injure it. The point is for the cow to be with the calf in close quarters where she must smell him all day, every day. Twice a day the cow is stanchioned, and the calf allowed to nurse. Help the calf keep from being kicked. Then put the calf back in the paneled corner and the cow in the pen.
By drinking the cows’ milk, the calf begins to take on the smell of the cow. This helps a cow identify a calf as hers. In a matter of days, she will begin to accept it and call to it. Once you are sure she has bonded, they can be turned out to pasture together. Most cases take less than a week, but a stubborn cow can take up to 2 weeks before accepting the calf. If the calf happens to be the same color as her last calf, this will help.
Acclimation Issues
If you bring a lamb, calf, or goat kid in your house or other heated building in cold weather to bottle feed, it is hard on them to return to the bitter cold once they have lost their acclimation. They can take surprisingly cold temperatures if they are dry and out of the wind. It may be better to put a child’s sweater on a calf if it is particularly cold than to bring it into a heated building if that is going to be temporary.
A dry stall with deep bedding goes a long way. Feed them plenty in cold weather as food is all they have to keep them warm. Don’t give them a lot more at a feeding, just feed them more often.
When I bring something into the house, I expect to keep them there through the inclement weather. I wait until the weather warms up just a little or moderates some so that it is easier to reacclimate. In the meantime, I keep them outside if it is at all workable.
Hypothermia
Sometimes we’ll have an early spring cold snap that dumps snow on our beef herd calving season. Dropping fresh wet calves into cold snow is a good way to lose calves quickly. They can take some cold weather if they are dry. Their mother will lick them off, stimulating their circulatory and digestive systems. This stimulates them to nurse which helps them stay warm. Wet weather and especially snow can syphon the heat right out of them since they cannot get dry.
Bottle babies have a little more stress and can be vulnerable to hypothermia if they get cold and wet. They can’t go to mama’s udder for a little warm comfort food when they start to shiver.
Cold lambs, kids and calves will shiver, this generates heat and burns a lot of calories. It helps to give them extra feedings, just not too much at one time. Let the bottles you give them be warm too, just not above 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
When they are so cold that they stop shivering, this is when you should worry. They will stumble around with poor footing. The inside of their mouth will feel cold. If you insert a rectal thermometer and the body temperature dips under 100 degrees F then they are heading towards hypothermia. Their normal body temperature should be around 101-102 degrees F. When they get really cold, they will shut down and be unable to move, this is very serious and you do not have a lot of time when they get this way.
A vet once told me that the quickest way to resolve an emergency hypothermia is to put them in a warm shower. Not hotter than is comfortable for you. A tub of very warm water may also do it.
I usually fill pint or quart jars with hot water, put a tight-fitting lid on it so it doesn’t leak and then slip it into a sock so that the jar does not burn their skin. It is important to have hot water bottles insulated with some fabric, direct contact would be too hot. If it is too hot for you to hold it is too hot for them to have direct contact. I wrap them in a blanket and place these hot water bottles around their body to help them warm up quickly. I move these bottles around every few minutes so one area doesn’t get too hot.
We had a calf once that was so cold she was nearly gone. Khoke brought her in from the beef herd where she’d been born following a late season snowstorm. I bundled her up with the hot water bottles and held the bundled calf on my open oven door until she was warm enough to shiver. Once she was shivering then I knew that she was on the road to recovery.
Apart from hypothermia, cold weather can also cost calves their ears and tails from frostbite. This is most likely when it is very cold, and they did not dry quickly enough. It can help to check and make sure they are dry and then rub their ears vigorously to get their blood flowing. They can also have trouble when they are penned with other calves who may have sucked on their ears, making them wet in too cold of weather.
Rennet
Another option for orphaned calves, lambs, or goat kids – that may get rotten tomatoes launched at me… is rennet. Rennet is a collection of enzymes found in a nursing ruminants’ abomasum (4th stomach). This has historically been used to make hard cheese. Rennet is still used today to make hard cheese. There are vegetable rennets but the best cheeses are made with the real deal. However, there are laboratory reproductions that are used to make the consistent commercial cheeses that we are all familiar with.
Now for those rotten tomatoes… Rennet can be homemade from butchering a veal calf, lamb or goat kid. This is one who has not yet been weaned and has not begun eating solid food. The 4th stomach, the abomasum, is what is saltcured into homemade rennet.
Prior to butchering, let the young ruminant fast overnight so they aren’t overly full of curd. When it has been butchered, find the abomasum, this is the last of the 4 stomachs right before the small intestine. See if you can cut it out at the sphincters on either side of it. Don’t empty it of its contents, this is where you’ll be glad it doesn’t have any solid food. The curd-like contents can cure with the stomach.
We rubbed ours with Redmond Real salt, then I put salt in the bottom of a wide mouth jar, added the salted stomach, then more salt. Then I put a lid on it and let it sit in a cool place for several months. After at least 6 months, it needs to be taken out and air dried. Not anywhere hot like an oven, you want those enzymes alive. Make sure that you use salt without any additives.
To dry it, it helps to pump some air into it. Tie off one side with string. Pump in some air, tie off the other side. Now let it hang in a warm dry spot for a week or so. Then it should keep for years in a tight vessel,
To use your homemade rennet, cut off a little piece of it, roughly an inch square piece should be able to set the curd for 4 gallons of milk. Reconstitute the rennet in ½ cup mild saltwater overnight. In the morning, pour off the excess water, make a paste from the rennet, add ½ cup water back to it to thin the paste and use it as you would any other rennet. This should give you a nice firm curd. Results will vary depending on the age of the animal.
We occasionally have calves or lambs that are born with defects that would prevent them from reaching maturity or would make life unnecessarily difficult. These are good candidates for rennet. Sometimes an orphaned or injured animal can be used too if you don’t have the time to care for them by hand. Never use diseased animals.
Goats
Goat kids are raised very similar to lambs. They have many of the same needs and vulnerabilities. Goats are slightly more vulnerable to parasites than sheep and are always looking for an excuse to die from worms. You cannot be too careful with goats. Keep them on a regular deworming routine beginning within a few weeks of eating solid food. Parasites are always looking for goats.
Goats are also highly susceptible to coccidiosis. Do not house your goats near chickens and certainly not in shared quarters. It is common for chickens to carry coccidiosis. They have a measure of resistance to it and rarely have a full-blown infection enough to die. If you see a spot of blood in your chicken poop or wet feathers from diarrhea, then that chicken may have coccidiosis.
While chickens tolerate and resist coccidiosis, goats do not. Sheep can be rather vulnerable as well, but this is another excuse goats use to die. Goat kids are particularly vulnerable.
My father and husband share a deep dislike for goats. I have hand-raised goat kids for others on multiple occasions and found them to be charming little companions. My favorite of them was a beautiful little goat named Dexter.
Dexter had a mottled grey coat that looked like a jigsaw puzzle. He was the runt of his litter of four and as small as a kitten. He had weak tendons that caused him to stand on his ankles the first 2 to 3 weeks of his life. He was so weak when I got him that it was 2 weeks before he was strong enough to walk on his own.
After about three weeks his legs grew into the loose tendons and his feet righted themselves and he was able to walk on his hooves like a normal kid. I fed him well and he became fat and had a soft beautiful coat. Oh, how we loved that little goat! He was brim full of personality and became the only goat my father would confess to like. Once weaned however, he returned to the flock from which he came.
Squirt the Squirrel
When I was growing up, my dad’s dogs killed a squirrel in March one year. We didn’t think much about it at the time. A couple days later, we heard a sharp piercing cry coming from up the hill. I found a very small squirrel working his way down the hill. I picked him up and walked up the hill a little ways and found his brother.
For a couple days I fed them milk from an eyedropper. It soon became obvious that our whole cow’s milk was not sufficient. I called around and a veterinarian gave me a recipe for a homemade kitten milk replacer that he said would work. It was too late to save one of the squirrels but the other improved immediately and became quite a pet.
Homemade Kitten Milk Replacer
? c Whole milk
1 tsp Peanut or Corn oil
3 Egg yolks
Mix well and administer with a kitten bottle or an eye dropper.
If using an eye dropper, do so gently. You do not want to get the milk in their lungs. This can cause pneumonia.
We learned a lot of things by having a pet squirrel. Like, never leave out squash seed that you want to save. He really liked them. All of them.
Squirt would run energetic laps on my bed in the morning. It was hard to write a letter when you had a squirrel pouncing on and attacking your pencil as you write. He’d wrestle and tussle like a kitten.
We’d tease him by playing tug of war with a nut. Let me tell you, a squirrel can cuss! If we took him outside with us, he’d get anxious if we got too far from the house and make a run for the door.
We lived in Tennessee, a prime timber land country. There were many timber cutters who had pet squirrels from disrupted nests in fallen trees. Some gave tips on difficulties to avoid. Don’t give squirrels salted nuts, the salt can kill them. Do not build a little house/pen using pressed wood or varnish. The out-gassing fumes can kill them. Often wildlife has fleas or lice, if they do, don’t dust them with insecticidal dust, this can give them chemical pneumonia if they breathe it in. Apply room temperature cooking oil to their coat to kill the insects, then wash them gently with warm soapy water. Towel them dry and keep them warm.
Squirt showed us how to see squirrels in a new way. Need I say it? Dad’s dogs were no longer allowed to chase and kill squirrels.
The Journey
Over the past 25 years I have raised more bottle or bucket fed animals than I even know how to count. A few were orphans, many were dropped off by busy farmers, some we bought and the rest were calves from our own cows that we separated to hand raise. I have lost very few but some of those took much more time and energy than any practical person would ever do.
Many of those long exhausting hours would have been unnecessary if I had known then what I do now. But life is about the journey not the arrival. My journey is ever ongoing and I will continue to waste time and energy in my struggle to learn and grow. I am okay with that kind of life. It is full.
