Electrolytes for calves

johnnyw20

Going buying a bunch of calves on Tuesday for the first time. They will be 3/4 weeks old

What electrolytes do people use for them and will they drink them from a teat feeder?

Thanks

tismesoitis

Why are you giving electrolytes?? Only give them this if they dehydrated/sick!Just give them watery milk for the 1st day or 2 then get them up to full milk.

johnnyw20

They will be coming from the mart and I've been reading online that they need electrolytes 3 hours after they arrive home

Mooooo

They should drink it fine perhaps get a bottle feeder may be handy to have incase one needs attention down the line . If sick effydral would be one to give won't do harm anyway to give them a litre and then give them the milk later that evening

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/b/thread/2057662993/3?

Look at thread above I posted a simple electrolyte mix that you can make yourself. You can feed it to them to rehydrate them after mart. The thinking now is not to feed weak mix milk replacer as it is not good for calf digestive system. The thinking now is to feed milk and electrolyte sperate.

_Brian

tismesoitis wrote: »

Why are you giving electrolytes?? Only give them this if they dehydrated/sick!Just give them watery milk for the 1st day or 2 then get them up to full milk.

It's really not recommended to mix milk at anything but the correct concentration.

Milk is designed to form a crud in the calf and if it's too weak it can't and there is a much increased if creating a nutritional scour and all scours are gateways to many problems.

It is recommended in many places particularly for calves coming from the mart to give them electrolytes when they first arrive, many will have been hanging round for hours and sucks in particular dehydrate very easily.

tismesoitis

Learn something new everyday. Best if luck with calves Johnny!

Injuryprone

johnnyw20 wrote: »

Going buying a bunch of calves on Tuesday for the first time. They will be 3/4 weeks old

What electrolytes do people use for them and will they drink them from a teat feeder?

Thanks

I use replenolyte. It's cheap at 36c per feed.

Almost all calves take to it straight away and it seems to turn around sick calves very quickly. I used to have trouble before getting them to drink the glucose/bread soda/salt mix.

Btw I'm using it for calves with rotavirus scour, so may not be fully compatible with your situation.