Farming Chit Chat

whelan1

fantastic day here, you can nearly feel the growth

pakalasa

just do it wrote: »

Well done, Pak - sounds like you'll get a result out of a bad night i.e. 2 cows and calves. Fingers crossed.

How's the heifer now? Has she gotten up and settled down?

Oh, she's up alright. Doing her best to get me. I have a halter on her, so when she comes for me over the gate, I can grab it and tie her up. Never realsied till now how handy the halters can be. Calf is getting stronger, trying to stand but still too weak. I milked the heifer and tubed the calf this morning. BTW, this bull calf is by NHL and the mother is 3 year old HKG from a big red lim I had. I should have used FL22 on her, like the other heifers. But she was a lot older than the rest when I AI'd them.

whelan1

had a pb aa cow that was forcing alot last week, handled her but she was very tight, got vet , she said she wasnt ready to calve... settled down over the weekend and we said that we would let her back down to the rest of the cows this morning, when we got there she had a set of angus twin bulls beside her:eek: she calved last year on may 31! so she didnt waste any time.... these are the moments that make farming worthwhile:)

whelan1

things not going great, cow knocking the crap out of both twins- suckling is not easy:cool: left them seperated for the night, she will let them drink but can beat the crap out of them with her head.... patience

Richk2012

Lambing started today to a wretched start :mad: . Ive 8 triplet ewes who have been kept seperate from twins and singles are seperate again from both. The triplets , like the twins are been fed 18% nuts twice daily but bigger amounts and very limited access to haylage.
Despite this , four of these eight triplet ewes have prolapsed on me over the last two weeks , along with two twins . As frustrating as this is all the ewes are doing fine with save-ewes inserted in them and two being stitched .
However I fed twins and triplets this morning at 7.30 paying extra attention for lambs or indeed lamb-beds as their due date is tomorrow. Everything fine at that time .
I returned to the yard at 12 o clock to find possibly the best strongest triplet ewe (who had no prolapse or any other proplems) stretched out gasping in pain. I walk behind her to see she has pushed out most of her insides . Intestines , Kidneys all lay on the ground . I ran and fetched the gun and a sharp blade . All three lambs dead when i got them out .
Why has this happened , Iv heard of it but never dealt with it before?????

just do it

Richk2012 wrote: »

Lambing started today to a wretched start :mad: . Ive 8 triplet ewes who have been kept seperate from twins and singles are seperate again from both. The triplets , like the twins are been fed 18% nuts twice daily but bigger amounts and very limited access to haylage.
Despite this , four of these eight triplet ewes have prolapsed on me over the last two weeks , along with two twins . As frustrating as this is all the ewes are doing fine with save-ewes inserted in them and two being stitched .
However I fed twins and triplets this morning at 7.30 paying extra attention for lambs or indeed lamb-beds as their due date is tomorrow. Everything fine at that time .
I returned to the yard at 12 o clock to find possibly the best strongest triplet ewe (who had no prolapse or any other proplems) stretched out gasping in pain. I walk behind her to see she has pushed out most of her insides . Intestines , Kidneys all lay on the ground . I ran and fetched the gun and a sharp blade . All three lambs dead when i got them out .
Why has this happened , Iv heard of it but never dealt with it before?????

I'd hazard a guess that when she started pushing a lamb was presented the wrong way and a leg went through the uterus. Now a bit of intestine slipped into the hole and a few more pushes and the whole lot came tumbling out. Not a pretty sight and even if you were with her it possibly was just as likely to happen. Just one of those things.

blue5000

Richk2012 wrote: »

Lambing started today to a wretched start :mad: . Ive 8 triplet ewes who have been kept seperate from twins and singles are seperate again from both. The triplets , like the twins are been fed 18% nuts twice daily but bigger amounts and very limited access to haylage.
Despite this , four of these eight triplet ewes have prolapsed on me over the last two weeks , along with two twins . As frustrating as this is all the ewes are doing fine with save-ewes inserted in them and two being stitched .
However I fed twins and triplets this morning at 7.30 paying extra attention for lambs or indeed lamb-beds as their due date is tomorrow. Everything fine at that time .
I returned to the yard at 12 o clock to find possibly the best strongest triplet ewe (who had no prolapse or any other proplems) stretched out gasping in pain. I walk behind her to see she has pushed out most of her insides . Intestines , Kidneys all lay on the ground . I ran and fetched the gun and a sharp blade . All three lambs dead when i got them out .
Why has this happened , Iv heard of it but never dealt with it before?????

sh1t, and I thought I was having a bad day, sorry I've no answer, but could there be too much or not enough fibre in their diet, sorry I know sfa about sheep.

Richk2012

just do it wrote: »

I'd hazard a guess that when she started pushing a lamb was presented the wrong way and a leg went through the uterus. Now a bit of intestine slipped into the hole and a few more pushes and the whole lot came tumbling out. Not a pretty sight and even if you were with her it possibly was just as likely to happen. Just one of those things.

Yea sounds a reasonable explanation . At least i put the poor lady out of her misery and she wasnt left linger on . Suppose as the saying goes "as long as you have livestock you'l have deadstock" .

rancher

Richk2012 wrote: »

Lambing started today to a wretched start :mad: . Ive 8 triplet ewes who have been kept seperate from twins and singles are seperate again from both. The triplets , like the twins are been fed 18% nuts twice daily but bigger amounts and very limited access to haylage.
Despite this , four of these eight triplet ewes have prolapsed on me over the last two weeks , along with two twins . As frustrating as this is all the ewes are doing fine with save-ewes inserted in them and two being stitched .
However I fed twins and triplets this morning at 7.30 paying extra attention for lambs or indeed lamb-beds as their due date is tomorrow. Everything fine at that time .
I returned to the yard at 12 o clock to find possibly the best strongest triplet ewe (who had no prolapse or any other proplems) stretched out gasping in pain. I walk behind her to see she has pushed out most of her insides . Intestines , Kidneys all lay on the ground . I ran and fetched the gun and a sharp blade . All three lambs dead when i got them out .
Why has this happened , Iv heard of it but never dealt with it before?????

Was she a texel by any chance? They seem prone to that, don't think it has anything to do with lambing. I get one or two like that every year, I'm having a lot of trouble too this year with ordinary prolapses, I use the harnesses as well and then take out the internal retainer after 24 to 48 hrs.I find the internal one causes infections and irritation making them force whereas you can leave the harness on for weeks if you have to, these are just my observations.....not really veterinary advice

porter shark

problems here with scouring calves. its always the same this time of the year, i'm forever asking advice... this year two of the farmers i would look up to have advised me to dose back the mouth, one reccommends 5mls of fromamycin or marbocyl and the other swears by 20mls of penicillin.
has anyone here given eitherof these to calves orally?

whelan1

porter shark wrote: »

problems here with scouring calves. its always the same this time of the year, i'm forever asking advice... this year two of the farmers i would look up to have advised me to dose back the mouth, one reccommends 5mls of fromamycin or marbocyl and the other swears by 20mls of penicillin.
has anyone here given eitherof these to calves orally?

what type of scour is it? i would get the vet, never gave antibiotics orally like that... bimastat is a great product maybe try that

just do it

porter shark wrote: »

problems here with scouring calves. its always the same this time of the year, i'm forever asking advice... this year two of the farmers i would look up to have advised me to dose back the mouth, one reccommends 5mls of fromamycin or marbocyl and the other swears by 20mls of penicillin.
has anyone here given eitherof these to calves orally?

Agree with whelan1, get the vet. You obviously have a herd problem that needs to be properly diagnosed. Only then can it be treated properly.

whelan1

porter shark wrote: »

problems here with scouring calves. its always the same this time of the year, i'm forever asking advice... this year two of the farmers i would look up to have advised me to dose back the mouth, one reccommends 5mls of fromamycin or marbocyl and the other swears by 20mls of penicillin.
has anyone here given eitherof these to calves orally?

asked my dad, he said when he had pigs they would give 5cc of streptomycin down the throat BUT you still had to find the reason for the scour

roran

whelan1 wrote: »

asked my dad, he said when he had pigs they would give 5cc of streptomycin down the throat BUT you still had to find the reason for the scour

I see that you are in Galway. There s a lab in Portumna that'll tell you what bug is causing the scour. I had a problem a few weeks back and it turned out calves had both crypto and rotavirus. They'll tell your vet all in same day.

Muckit

scours here aswell on Sunday. Traced it back to an indian and a feed of Guinness on St. Paddy's ..... rough

redzerologhlen

Muckit wrote: »

scours here aswell on Sunday. Traced it back to an indian and a feed of Guinness on St. Paddy's ..... rough

Sulpher No.2 given orally will have you dried up in jig time

Username John

rancher wrote: »

Was she a texel by any chance? They seem prone to that, don't think it has anything to do with lambing. I get one or two like that every year, I'm having a lot of trouble too this year with ordinary prolapses, I use the harnesses as well and then take out the internal retainer after 24 to 48 hrs.I find the internal one causes infections and irritation making them force whereas you can leave the harness on for weeks if you have to, these are just my observations.....not really veterinary advice

Interesting - I had a good few prolapses this year as well, and I only ever had one in the three seasons before this...

Bit sickening cos one or two were nice hoggetts which will be culled now :mad:

rancher

Username John wrote: »

Interesting - I had a good few prolapses this year as well, and I only ever had one in the three seasons before this...

Bit sickening cos one or two were nice hoggetts which will be culled now :mad:

Maybe I'm going to learn the hard way, but I was going to give my nice hoggets another chance... never done it before.
Think they were just too fat this year. The shop where I buy the harnesses says he can't keep up with demand this year.
A lot of the prolapse cases here have ring womb when they come to lamb.

Richk2012

rancher wrote: »

Was she a texel by any chance? They seem prone to that, don't think it has anything to do with lambing. I get one or two like that every year, I'm having a lot of trouble too this year with ordinary prolapses, I use the harnesses as well and then take out the internal retainer after 24 to 48 hrs.I find the internal one causes infections and irritation making them force whereas you can leave the harness on for weeks if you have to, these are just my observations.....not really veterinary advice

She was indeed a Texel . Hmmm thats interesting that there prone to this .. Il keep that in mind when picking lambs to hold back

whelan1

see in the local paper that carrolls engineering went on fire on saturday night, they are a major massey dealer in the north east, they are a few miles from me, i could smell burning on sunday morning , so it must have been from the fire there.... awful thing to happen, workshop and sales area badly dmaaged according to paper

Richk2012

porter shark wrote: »

problems here with scouring calves. its always the same this time of the year, i'm forever asking advice... this year two of the farmers i would look up to have advised me to dose back the mouth, one reccommends 5mls of fromamycin or marbocyl and the other swears by 20mls of penicillin.
has anyone here given eitherof these to calves orally?

Id agree with the two lads about contacting the vet . I was plagued with it about 6 years ago for two calving seasons back to back . Lost over 12 calves with it in the two years . Mine started scouring the first year and despite a cocktail of electrolytes , betamox , biamastat , and caolin i lost about 7 calves.
All the vet could say was try to calve them out of the shed where their cleaner and vaccinate the cows for the following year .
The following year rolled around and i vaccinated the cows about 6/8 weeks before calving . After about 4 cows calved , i started reliving the fcuking nightmare. I nearly strangled the vet when i lost the first 2 calves of the second season as i took his advice (Vaccinate) as Gospel.
A vet from Schering Plough , who manafacture the vaccine , arrived to me a couple of days later to take scour and blood samples of 2 more sick caves .
Long story short , the vaccine "Rotavec Corona" protects the calves from certain basic scours such as Rotavirus and E-coli . My calves were all dying from Cryptosparadium . The vaccine and all other drugs i had being giving them were totally useless , and a complete waste of money . Used Halocur on them and it cured them .
Thank God I havent lost a calf wit scour since then .
Hopefully your calves have just a milk scour or somethin simple but you should find out what it is before you start buying expensive treatments for them

Username John

rancher wrote: »

Maybe I'm going to learn the hard way, but I was going to give my nice hoggets another chance... never done it before.
Think they were just too fat this year. The shop where I buy the harnesses says he can't keep up with demand this year.
A lot of the prolapse cases here have ring womb when they come to lamb.

We had one last year (which was the first I had seen, and I guess I would be at home for 4 seasons now)
A nice black faced hogget, prob the nicest one out of our own sheep. She had one single lamb - biggest best lamb we had last year of course... So I decided to keep her this year, to chance it.
She prolapsed again this year :mad:

Mine weren't too fat lambing - the vet said this may be the case, so I cut back on feeding. Maybe a bit too much, as one or two could have had more milk after lambing, but they came into it all right...

But some of the single lambs were very big. Although.. the biggest lamb was 8kg, and she lambed no problems...
I suspect too good feeding early on... as they were on very good after grass for 8 - 10 weeks maybe after the ram was taken away...

I hope it gets better for you - twas a sickening enough lambing here then this year...

stanflt

whelan1 wrote: »

see in the local paper that carrolls engineering went on fire on saturday night, they are a major massey dealer in the north east, they are a few miles from me, i could smell burning on sunday morning , so it must have been from the fire there.... awful thing to happen, workshop and sales area badly dmaaged according to paper

think they lost agency before christmas

no a nice thing to happen

whelan1

stanflt wrote: »

think they lost agency before christmas

no a nice thing to happen

no way, i normally send my husband down to get anything we want there, so who got the dealership, that would be a big loss to them

whelan1

Richk2012 wrote: »

Id agree with the two lads about contacting the vet . I was plagued with it about 6 years ago for two calving seasons back to back . Lost over 12 calves with it in the two years . Mine started scouring the first year and despite a cocktail of electrolytes , betamox , biamastat , and caolin i lost about 7 calves.
All the vet could say was try to calve them out of the shed where their cleaner and vaccinate the cows for the following year .
The following year rolled around and i vaccinated the cows about 6/8 weeks before calving . After about 4 cows calved , i started reliving the fcuking nightmare. I nearly strangled the vet when i lost the first 2 calves of the second season as i took his advice (Vaccinate) as Gospel.
A vet from Schering Plough , who manafacture the vaccine , arrived to me a couple of days later to take scour and blood samples of 2 more sick caves .
Long story short , the vaccine "Rotavec Corona" protects the calves from certain basic scours such as Rotavirus and E-coli . My calves were all dying from Cryptosparadium . The vaccine and all other drugs i had being giving them were totally useless , and a complete waste of money . Used Halocur on them and it cured them .
Thank God I havent lost a calf wit scour since then .
Hopefully your calves have just a milk scour or somethin simple but you should find out what it is before you start buying expensive treatments for them

got the last oocide disenfectant buckets that my vet had today, its off the market:mad: only thing for disenfecting and killing the crypto bacteria in a shed

Bodacious

I let my weanling/yearling heifers off to grass today, I bought 2 of them
Oct 29th so nearly 5 months now feeding them, sick of feeding, great to see them tucking in! Weather good for foreseeable forecast also, will also leave more haylage for late calvers

Can't beat this dry weather, chain harrowing and rolling

sideboard

Bodacious wrote: »

I let my weanling/yearling heifers off to grass today, I bought 2 of them
Oct 29th so nearly 5 months now feeding them, sick of feeding, great to see them tucking in! Weather good for foreseeable forecast also, will also leave more haylage for late calvers

Can't beat this dry weather, chain harrowing and rolling

cant help thinking of those weanlings on grass (in a slight west indian accent) "mmm mmm mmm, grass mon, and he's chain-harrow-ing-and rollin' mon....way to go mom" :D:D

porter shark

thanks for all the advice boys. i probably could've been clearer describing the problem though. we calve in the shed from september through to may and it is this time of the year that the problems start every year.
might calve 80 with three losses and be thinking things are going well but then every single one of the last 20 or 30 will attempt to die.
disinfecting shed, tablets, bimostat, sulpha no.2etc all help but without morning and evening sucking i think they'd all die.
if crypto was the problem would it be present all year?
i always think its just milk scour but if it is why does every calf get it once one gets it? before christmas theres absolutely no problem.
is this anything like your complaint rich? you think i should hive halocur a try?

whelan1

porter shark wrote: »

thanks for all the advice boys. i probably could've been clearer describing the problem though. we calve in the shed from september through to may and it is this time of the year that the problems start every year.
might calve 80 with three losses and be thinking things are going well but then every single one of the last 20 or 30 will attempt to die.
disinfecting shed, tablets, bimostat, sulpha no.2etc all help but without morning and evening sucking i think they'd all die.
if crypto was the problem would it be present all year?
i always think its just milk scour but if it is why does every calf get it once one gets it? before christmas theres absolutely no problem.
is this anything like your complaint rich? you think i should hive halocur a try?

what disenfectant do you use?

just do it

porter shark wrote: »

thanks for all the advice boys. i probably could've been clearer describing the problem though. we calve in the shed from september through to may and it is this time of the year that the problems start every year.
might calve 80 with three losses and be thinking things are going well but then every single one of the last 20 or 30 will attempt to die.
disinfecting shed, tablets, bimostat, sulpha no.2etc all help but without morning and evening sucking i think they'd all die.
if crypto was the problem would it be present all year?
i always think its just milk scour but if it is why does every calf get it once one gets it? before christmas theres absolutely no problem.
is this anything like your complaint rich? you think i should hive halocur a try?

At the risk of repetition you need samples taken and analysed to see what bugs you're dealing with, i.e. your vet's involvement. Then the appropriate treatment will be apparent. Maybe you've a cow producing a PI calf at this time of spring each year. Halocur won't cure that.

rancher

Richk2012 wrote: »

She was indeed a Texel . Hmmm thats interesting that there prone to this .. Il keep that in mind when picking lambs to hold back

A bit harsh to say prone to putting out their guts.....1or2 cases per year in 500 ewes, not exactly an epidemic but I've never seen any other breed doing it

5live

Spent yesterday getting all my jobs sorted for today to finish the spreading. Up early and cows waiting at the gate. Milked and calves fed for 9, no bother:D. Went to get the tractor to load up and front tire flat:mad:. Went to get the other one to pump it to take it to get it fixed and it wouldnt start:mad::mad:. Some eejit (me:o) left the key on for 2 days, turned once and died.

God but i love this farming lark:rolleyes:

Muckit

When things are going too good, that's when you want to watch out! :rolleyes:

pakalasa

Yep, it's when you take your eye off the ball.

leg wax

pakalasa wrote: »

Yep, it's when you take your eye off the ball.

wheres the ball:eek:.could not see it there for 3 weeks.:mad:

dar31

ran out of water today, had to turn on the council water.
usually only have to do this for a month in august.
have three supplies, gravity spring, well, and then council, all filling into 3k gl resiviour. gravity was only trickling in, and well pump couldn't keep up with cows, was doing a bit of power washing but not enough water used to cause problems

whelan1

dar31 wrote: »

ran out of water today, had to turn on the council water.
usually only have to do this for a month in august.
have three supplies, gravity spring, well, and then council, all filling into 3k gl resiviour. gravity was only trickling in, and well pump couldn't keep up with cows, was doing a bit of power washing but not enough water used to cause problems

we had to lift our pump a few weeks ago as it was blocked with iron, working fine now, touch wood..... how much will the mains cost?

dar31

whelan1 wrote: »

we had to lift our pump a few weeks ago as it was blocked with iron, working fine now, touch wood..... how much will the mains cost?

not sure, last year was first time paying for it.

had pump on out farm up last month as well.
first time out found break in cable, replaced cable
2nd time replaced pump, still kept triping out
3rd time changed pigtail cable from pump to main cable
eventually worked, took 4 days as sparks was doing it in the evenings, had to let the cattle out of the shed to the river to drink.

whelan1

amazing how much we take water for granted

redzerologhlen

The uncle brought his Charolais bull to ennis today. He was 1100kg, couldnt fit up any of the chutes so they let him in through the sheep pens. Unsold at €2200, said he wants €2500 for him!!

whelan1

anyone see any cull fr cows in the mart recently, bringing 2 on tuesday. whats the price like

stanflt

sold a fresh calved heifer in the mart today- she was the first milking daughter from a bull we got into ai( ftv not Flt )

she made 2100 and is an easy VG heifer-

By stanflt at 2012-03-22

By stanflt at 2012-03-22
not enough credit is given to irish bulls especially from the ihfa- how can so many irish bulls have so poor linear scores yet their progeny consistanly classify well-rant over

a happy day

stanflt

whelan1 wrote: »

anyone see any cull fr cows in the mart recently, bringing 2 on tuesday. whats the price like

cows were making 700-1380 in carnaross on monday

600kg were avg 950

whelan1

stanflt wrote: »

cows were making 700-1380 in carnaross on monday

600kg were avg 950

good job, need them to pay for my holidays next week!:)

Bizzum

whelan1 wrote: »

good job, need them to pay for my holidays next week!:)

Anywhere exotic?

whelan1

Bizzum wrote: »

Anywhere exotic?

same as last year benalmadena, in spain sunset beach club

Bizzum

whelan1 wrote: »

same as last year benalmadena, in spain sunset beach club

Enjoy yourself. I'm off the following week, though not just as exotic! Limerick. Hope the weather stays like this week.

whelan1

kids where checking weather for next week 21 degrees for the day we arrive, which is managable for the kids (and me!)

Muckit

redzerologhlen wrote: »

The uncle brought his Charolais bull to ennis today. He was 1100kg, couldnt fit up any of the chutes so they let him in through the sheep pens. Unsold at €2200, said he wants €2500 for him!!

Any pics?? How old is he? Fair play to him for holding out

1chippy

Heard of a lad getting 1560 for a 720 empty suckler last week.
we sold 7 weanlins today aug 11, between 240-330kg went between 580-620 along with their weight.