I have a twelve day old calf and I noticed that is stool wasa little slimy and with some blood. It is more mucous than loose, appears to be fine nursing okay and running with the other calves. Should I be concerned with the bloody stool and mucous appearance? Cow appears to be fine a

-- David Kehres (dkehres@osprey.net), March 24, 2002

Answers

I am busy hand raised 4 calves at the moment and all 4 had the same thing #1 is 10 weeks old and #2 is 9 weeks #3 is 7 weeks old and #4 is nearly 4 weeks old. All of them had slimy bloody stools at about the same age, I phoned a cattle farmer that lives next door to me and he came over and said that it is normal. I must admit that I am finding this hand raising very worrying. # 3 mother died from heart water and I had to inject all the calves. I buy them in from a dairy farmer who uses a beef master bull on the first time heifers they are all bull calves. I am not sure when to wean them from the milk powder. They are all eating meal and hay and all but # 4 are grazing, but they all love the their bottles, I'm sure I will have a hard time telling them that they are not getting any more milk.

-- Julie (jskinner@tellumat.com), March 25, 2002.