# Blind calf



## Calfka (Oct 8, 2012)

My husband and I have a tiny herd of "baldys" that we run with a Balancer bull. About 3 weeks ago, we had a bull calf born, all seemed normal, but we found him a week later, very weak, almost non-responsive, covered in fire ants and completely blind. 
Initially he was not strong enough to nurse off the cow, so we put him in the barn and began bottle feeding. 
Vet gave him banamine and an antibiotic shot & eye salve. He was off the cow long enough that she dried up despite oxytocin shots, but he's eating well from the bottle and past the scours stage. Eyes are still ulcerated, seems doubtful he'll regain his vision.
So....we've saved him, but what now?! Should we try to put some weight on him and put him in the freezer? Once he's old enough to wean, do blind calves graze normally? Doubt if he'll bring a regular price at the sale barn, but have never tried to live with a blind calf....anyone have any experience with this? Will he constantly be getting seperated from the herd? We do have a coyote problem despite a fierce gelding who is always on patrol.
Thoughts?


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## G. Seddon (May 16, 2005)

Poor little thing. I cannot offer any advice, but if you google "raising a blind calf," you will find information from others who've done it. Maybe it will help. Good luck and please post what you end up doing with the little fella.

I seem to recall thiamine might be of help? Ask your vet!


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## Nica (Oct 3, 2009)

I found a blind calf "wandering" in my uncut wheat several weeks ago. He was responsive to my voice but just stumbled around in the wheet when I tried to get him out and into my farm yard. Had a neighbor help me talk/drive it to a 20x20 pen and provided water and feed in plastic feed containers. Went straight to the water, guess by smell, and drank what seemed forever. Poor thing probably hadn't drank for quite a while. Would eat when it stumbeled onto the feed.

Finially located the owner next day and took all we could do to get in loaded in his stock trailer. Calf was about 250#. He said the calf did ok when it was with others, I guess it would tag along thru sounds.

Hope this little bit of experience helps in some way. Good luck.


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## SpaceCadet12364 (Apr 27, 2003)

We have a neighbor that got a calf that had pink-eye in both eyes to a point that they cut both eyes. She is now 8 or 9 yrs. And a very good mother. She will adopt a calf easily.
If they move anything in pasture she may bump into once or twice. If she she gets separated from the herd shell will ball till a cow comes back for her. Which is usually pretty quick. So do what you can for him and get him up and growing. If you plan on eating him don't get attached to him it makes it harder to eat him.


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## Oakshire_Farm (Dec 4, 2008)

I have a yearling holstein heifer that was born totally blind. I posted on here whn I got her. I had no idea what I was getting into...... well a year later, I am starting to think about breeding her. She does FANTASTIC! She is a little stunted?? but she is a healthy and in great shape! She shares a pasture with a mini horse a arab pony 3 sheep, and a few weanling calves. They all are a great group. She always finds her way around, she has never had a problem finding her way to the water. I do not planning on moving her, she knows all the boundaries of her pasture, she knows where the feed is, where the barn is and where the water is.


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## Calfkeeper (Feb 1, 2006)

If you go to my blog link and then do a search within the blog on "blind calf" you will come up with my blind calf story. What is most interesting there is to read through the comments. I think our calf had an infection or something. Her sight did come back partially after several weeks. I think it all depends on the cause of the blindness. But she did quite well even with limited vision. 
We eventually culled her because she'd get a major infection with any and every casual wound she got. We were afraid she'd not survive calving and didn't want to keep putting meds in her. 
But this is our story. Your bull calf will likely do fine.


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## opportunity (Mar 31, 2012)

I know a guy who runs about 100 mother cows and he has a blind one she does fine untill they round up she doesn't really know where to go in the corrals you have to help her more then the others. She does fine with out with the others.


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## Calfka (Oct 8, 2012)

Thank you all for the posts & replys. It's good to know all this work may have been worth while. We usually sell the males once or twice a year. As most of our land is in pine trees (central North Carolina) we have limited grazing pasture. Guess we'll keep him in the barn until he's weaned and eating well, then put him out with the others, but watch closely to make certain he can stay with the herd. 

Years ago we used to get bottle babys from a friend's dairy, but we were younger and it was somehow easier to get out to the barn for all the feedings!

We put some calf starter out for him today, didn't seem interested, but hopefully he'll figure it out soon. He's not yet a month old, so this bottle business will be going on for awhile. 

Still very glad we found him when we did, it was just luck as an employee was bush hogging the pasture to kill the fall weeds and nearly ran over him. If we hadn't gotten to him then, I doubt we could have saved him.

Thanks again for the input, I'll post updates as things change.


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## FarmerDavid (Jul 16, 2012)

My brother in law has had pretty good luck getting blind calves to see by feeding them raw eggs


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