[15:23, 21/05/2022] Maaike de Schepper : Good day all, Any advice on drug dose and combination for the darting of an elephant calf, max a week old? Also any advice on substitute milk for elephant calves? Thanks. [00:51, 22/05/2022] HO Reuter: 1 week old elephant calf you might / should be able to catch by hand and inject 10-15mg Dormicum. Alternatively dart with 0.25 mg etorphine, 5 mg butorphanol plus 5-10 mg Dormicum? Simone Herzog has a good hand-rearing protocol. [00:56, 22/05/2022] HO Reuter: The dosages above are probably more for 2-4 week elephants. If less than a week, a lower dose should be enough? [09:12, 22/05/2022] Simone Herzog : I transported elephant calf with very nice sedation with medetomidine/ketamine for 6 hours, using a horse dosage, but hand injected iv. I have had good result with butorphanol in a young calf, not for darting, but for colic, but should work for darting as well This document above is a very good, and comprehensive guideline. Calves tolerance varies very much and availability of substitute milk components can be a problem and changes gave to be made accordingly. Calf silicone teats work very well. Soak them in milk first so that they lose the fabrication taste. I advise that if a calf is taken in, only 2-3 caretakers must be in 24 h attendance. Use PetCalm (Kyron) for stress reducing and as olfactory "uniform"/ family scent for all handling of the calf.
