Milk Fever

 Yesterday I made a very fun post about twins on the farm. The two baby heifers are doing great and eating lots of yummy milk, however their mom is struggling a little bit after the stressful birth. Twins are rare for a reason on the farm because they can be very taxing on your animals, so preferably a cow will only have one calf instead of twins, or even triplets! The mother cow we diagnosed with a condition called milk fever. Milk fever causes an animal to become lethargic, have a lost or decreased appetite, and have extreme difficulty walking and moving around. This occurs due to a lack of calcium which calcium stores can become greatly depleted throughout gestation and post-calving. In order to help our momma cow feel better we had to give her a body a source of calcium which we use a solution called CMPK. This mixture contains, calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, and potassium and is given intravenously. It is possible to administer only calcium, but this can be risky and would need to be given to the animal very slowly to avoid any complications so instead we use CMPK as the mixture is much easier for us to give. This is also another great example as to why we separate the pens in the barn based on the age and current stage of lactation as late term gestating cows will require a significantly higher proportion of calcium in their diet than a growing yearling heifer. 

Today we shipped 4,719 gallons of milk and had one new jersey calf.