Saving Scooter

Scooter eating bits of bread

The big steer having a whole piece.

Regular readers may remember how poor Bailey had a six weeks premature calf not long ago. Alan named him Scooter and we have been raising him as best we could. We suspect that rather than being caused by some pathology, the early birth was caused by big, nasty heifers beating on the more timid animals. Bailey is a real wuss like all daughters of the bull Ricky that we had born here. Poor Scooter didn't even have teeth when he was born, but as you can see in the picture he does now.

Being born so early left him a bit compromised, but Becky has been faithful in his care and he has thrived, all things considered. Then yesterday he didn't want his milk very much. He seemed to be chewing his cud so we weren't too worried until the end of milking.

I had taken the camera and some bread to the barn to take some photos of the steers, heifers and calves eating it out of our hands. They love bread and go about half nuts if someone walks in with some. It is like dropping big pennies in a huge piggy bank...slices of bread are tiny compared to the mouths of cattle. Alan even offered Scooter a couple of tiny pieces and he ate them eagerly.

A few minutes later though Al ran out in the milk house, "I've got to give Scooter some water...he can't swallow his bread."

I explained to him how to put his fingers in a calf's mouth, on the corner where there are no teeth and to press a little on his palate so he would spit out the bread. However, he couldn't seem to do it, so I took over. To my surprise the poor little guy had a huge mass, not of bread, but of hay, plugging up his whole throat. It took some fiddling around to get it out without getting bitten by his tiny, razor sharp teeth, but I was able to. His relief was marked and he drank a bottle of water like it was going out of style. Apparently, although he has teeth, they are not quite up to the job of chewing up a lot of hay yet and it all got wadded up in his tiny throat.

I was so glad that Alan gave him the bread so that we realized what was troubling him. I hadn't been to worried about him not wanting his milk as he had just figured out how to work the big cow water bowl and we figured he was full of water. He seemed to be fine last night and polished off his evening bottle like a champ. BTW, that bottle is a two-liter Mountain Dew bottle with a lamb nipple rather than a big old calf bottle...those are too big for him.