Hi, I'm Dr. Jill. Unfortunately, the longer ruminants stay down, the less likely we are to be able to get them up regardless of the cause. In older animals especially, they commonly have arthritis and muscle weakness compounding any additional problems. The fact that he's eating and drinking well is a good sign for the rest of his body, and moving him is great to keep the area under him dry. If you wanted to continue trying with him, I would recommend doing some extension exercises with his legs (gently extending then flexing the leg...i.e. pulling it out away from his body and moving it back in) to try to help maintain some muscle movement as well as lifting him up every few hours to try to get him to move and stand on those back legs. If he can bear a little bit of weight you can try to fashion a sling for him to rest in as well, though this is not advised if he can't bear any weight on this back legs.

If his hind limbs are completely limp and he shows no signs of movement, you can also try taking an instrument and pinching the skin near the bottom of his leg to see if he reacts at all. No reaction indicating he can feel this (i.e. head turn, crying, etc.) could indicate he's lost nerve function to his legs which could be due to a number of other issues. However, I more commonly see weakness, pain, other illness as causal factors for being down than just loss of nerve function.

Additional prescription medications such as banamine (anti-inflammatory) or butorphanol (opioid) can also provide pain relief and help down animals get up. These would only be available through your veterinarian.

Again, regardless of the cause, most animals down for 5 days that I see unfortunately do not return to standing :(. So there are a few additional things you can try, but sadly I would not be very optimistic about his chances for recovery. I think either course of action would be perfectly acceptable...either opting for euthanasia at this point, or trying to assist him to stand every few hours and see if he can get some function back.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Hope this helps.