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Thursday 16 July 2009

I gave in ! and a dilemma ...

I held out for the best part of 4 days , but I have given in and bottle fed our latest cria ! I have been really good up until now , and just sat back and watched , he is nursing really nicely but I just knew he wasn't getting enough despite my best attempts with his mum . I have weighed him each morning and his weight has slowly declined , he started out big so I knew he wasn't in any real danger , but tonight I gave him a bottle and he drank 250ml straight down ! The vet also came out today to take some blood for an IgG test just to make sure he got enough colostrum - results tomorrow . I intend to just 'top up ' at night if possible , which should be a lot easier , but we shall see , I think his mum might be a little over conditioned ( fat ) which can affect milk production .....nobody really seems to know .

The next dilemma on the list is - to test or not to test ? I spoke to one of the BIG breeders today about mating for Riva in a couple of weeks , and they said that if I want to do a drive by then fine , but if I intend to leave her then they want a bTB test done . In theory I have no problem with this since I know , as much as one can, that my animals are clean , however, the test is so inaccurate that you cannot be 100% sure of the result and I have mixed feelings about taking a test which only has a 60% accuracy when the result could mean a cull . On the other hand , I have house sitters coming to stay for 2 weeks whilst we are away , and the added pressure of having to do an evening feed for our baby may prove a problem so sending the pair of them to a big breeder for a couple of months has its appeal . I shall cogitate on that one , any views are very welcome , what would you do ? or have you done ?

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