Duct tape and the new calf....

We had a new calf born this morning! I know, we've had a new calf each morning for several days. This one is special because we bought her mom at auction and hoped she'd have a heifer right away. Nope, her first calf for us was a bull calf. He did get the distinction of being kept as a herd bull on our farm. After having her conceive again we hoped for a heifer. Then she was diagnosed with leukemia, and was given a bad prognosis. The vet suggested that we cut our losses and ship her right away. We decided to keep her and see how things went.

Yeah! We got our heifer! Shorty brought her in to my barn, but there's no room at the inn :(

So, she gets to be tied for a few hours till we can clean a pen for her. When I went to dip her navel I noticed a problem. She seemed to have the inside of her navel hanging outside of her.

After calling the vet it was suggested that we try to keep it clean, in case it needs to go back in. I don't think it needs to, I think they'll just trim it off, tie it off and sew the hole shut. But, we did want to keep it clean, in case. The vet suggested covering it with something, then duct taping the covering to her.

She also wanted nothing to do with our regular calf nipples. She is pretty small, and I remembered that when our premie was born I had bought a lamb nipple in case he couldn't use the regular nipples. She latched right on to that one, and drank a whole bottle of colostrum replacer.

I took a picture to show the difference in size of the nipples.

Well, off to check on baby! Will post after pictures later, and the vets diagnosis.