Calving Difficulties

locky76

I've run into calving difficulties this year and would like people's opinions on the following:

• After the blister comes out how long before you handle the cow?
• If everything is as it should be (feet and head presented) how long before you start pulling
• If the feet are out how long should you leave it
• How long is the calf able to survive when the feet and head are presented but he's not breathing yet

Any other general advice would also be greatly appreciated!
I'll be going back to the angus next year i think

pakalasa

I had calving problems this year too. I never had before. I put it down to the good feeding in the spring grass. The grass was also very dry which increased the feed value a lot. In late born calves, April on - calves just swelled up in the cows. Very hard to restrict intake even on bare ground.

As for when to pull the calf, I go with 2 hours after the blister has broken.
I never had to even pull a calf before this year, except for a heifer or two.
Used a calving jack for the first time this year too.

whelan1

locky76 wrote: »

I've run into calving difficulties this year and would like people's opinions on the following:

• After the blister comes out how long before you handle the cow?
• If everything is as it should be (feet and head presented) how long before you start pulling
• If the feet are out how long should you leave it
• How long is the calf able to survive when the feet and head are presented but he's not breathing yet

Any other general advice would also be greatly appreciated!
I'll be going back to the angus next year i think

what has changed between this year and last year?

locky76

whelan1 wrote: »

what has changed between this year and last year?

Angus bull changed for a Limousine bull, better forage this year, that's about it.
First fatality was a cow with twins, vet had to pull both of them, they had been dead three or four days.
Third fatality was a fine bull calf in a 2 year old heifer, it was an unplanned pregnancy with the heifer. Vet pulled the calf, dead about half an hour, i had tried pulling myself but couldn't manage it.

Bizzum

locky76 wrote: »

First fatality was a cow with twins, vet had to pull both of them, they had been dead three or four days.
Third fatality was a fine bull calf in a 2 year old heifer, it was an unplanned pregnancy with the heifer. Vet pulled the calf, dead about half an hour, i had tried pulling myself but couldn't manage it.

In these 2 it's easy enough to lose a calf. Don't beat yourself up too much about it!
Re calving: In general when a cow is calving I try and leave her as long as she is making progress.
Experience will tell you when there is no or little progress. It is subjective though.
I would often handle a heifer maybe an hour or 90 mins after putting out the bag to see is the calf presenting normally if I thought she was dragging her heels.
I'd have an idea then of the room in the cow and the size of the calf, and make a decision from here.

whelan1

if the fluid that is coming is a browny colour this is a sign that the calf is in distress and it should be taken out fairly quickly

locky76

There's a cow outside now with the blister out, unbroken, she's on her side so i handled her, the feet and head are presented correctly, i'll leave her alone an hour and then i'll start pulling, jaysus i never realised sucklers were this stressful. I didn't worry this much when our son was being born last year:rolleyes:.
Another question, is clear discharge in the week leading up to calving normal?
All the cows calved at this stage have done it.
Cheers for the advice folks, all sound stuff.

locky76

Just in, a lovely heifer calf sucking her mother, she calved unaided, there is a god.
I'll change bulls for a Belgian blue or charolais next year:D.....NOT!!!!

whelan1

sometimes at this time of year you can get big calves, my last few calves where monsters , something to do with how the intake of the cow cant be restricted at this time of year... i posted on this a few weeks ago, well done on the new calf:D have you many left to calve?

Bizzum

locky76 wrote: »

Another question, is clear discharge in the week leading up to calving normal?

Absolutely normal when clear.

Bizzum

locky76 wrote: »

I'll change bulls for a Belgian blue or charolais next year:D.....NOT!!!!

If you have the correct cow you need not fear BB or Ch.

locky76

whelan1 wrote: »

sometimes at this time of year you can get big calves, my last few calves where monsters , something to do with how the intake of the cow cant be restricted at this time of year... i posted on this a few weeks ago, well done on the new calf:D have you many left to calve?

15 left to go, all big roomy cows on their fourth or fifth calf, with the help of god all will go well.

Min

I never heard it called a blister before, I presume this is the water bag?

locky76

Bizzum wrote: »

If you have the correct cow you need not fear BB or Ch.

Rightly or wrongly I fear BB and Ch, i think i'll go back to the angus, i'm finishing everything and i can get the heifer angus out the gate between 15 and 18 months old with the bullocks at 21 months.

Min

Bizzum wrote: »

If you have the correct cow you need not fear BB or Ch.

Never had any real trouble with BBs, just a few came backwards and they were alright, got some BB heifers in calf and no problem either but I made sure they didn't have the BB 's big backside.

Grecco

Heres a good book on the subject,
you should be able to pick it up on Amazon for under a tenner

Calving the Cow and Care of the Calf - Eddie Straiton

babybrian

Just wondering does everybody here use the calving jack??
I was in Australia working for awhile and seen that they dont ever use them, not even the vets. They all use calving pulleys which is basically yacht pulleys with chains and ropes. Super job because you cant do any damage compared with a calving jack. I brought 1 home and the auld lad says its the best thing that we ever got on the farm.

pakalasa

Min wrote: »

I never heard it called a blister before, I presume this is the water bag?

Yep, down Clare way, it's known as the blister.:D

reilig

locky76 wrote: »

15 left to go, all big roomy cows on their fourth or fifth calf, with the help of god all will go well.

Summer calving can be dangerous because of the amount of grass the cow may have access to for the 2 months leading up to the birth. Your cows need to be on bare ground - they need to have to do an awful lot of travelling to get a belly full. If they have access to good grass they will just stuff themselves, put fat on their backs - leadiing to a more difficult calving, and fatten the calf - leading to a bigger calf at birth. I know that it seems a bit cruel to limit the amount that they get, but its a great way of reducing the amount of difficult calvings that you are likely to have.

kennedy138

vet advises all cows should get bottle of cal/mag at this time of year if possible milk fever is often sub clinical at this time

locky76

reilig wrote: »

Summer calving can be dangerous because of the amount of grass the cow may have access to for the 2 months leading up to the birth. Your cows need to be on bare ground - they need to have to do an awful lot of travelling to get a belly full. If they have access to good grass they will just stuff themselves, put fat on their backs - leadiing to a more difficult calving, and fatten the calf - leading to a bigger calf at birth. I know that it seems a bit cruel to limit the amount that they get, but its a great way of reducing the amount of difficult calvings that you are likely to have.

My system involves grazing the prime grass with last years cattle and cleaning it off with the cows thus limiting the amount of grass. I cleaned to the clay this year with the cows.
I scan and wean off the calf ten weeks before this years anticipated calving date also to limit a cows condition.
Also i have thirty acres out of seventy taken out of the rotation for meadowing and this only comes back in after most cows are calves.
Point taken though reilig on limiting cows intake 10 week prior up to calving;)

Bizzum

babybrian wrote: »

Just wondering does everybody here use the calving jack??

Yeah. We use it quite a bit.
We run a Charolais bull on R and U grade continental cows.
Any that we think will struggle eg. a second calver, we would AI.
The heifers typically calve to AI Lim, with the odd BA or Part thrown into the mix.

pakalasa

I got a call from a neighbour yesterday to go have a look at a heifer that was having trouble calving. We managed to jack out the calf after a hard pull, but she was dead when we got her out. Heifer was fine and big at the hips but calf was very big, even though he requested an easy calving Lim bull. I suspect it was NHL...:mad:
We got the calf (heifer) as far as the hips but she got stuck there. It took a while to get her out fully then. My question is - the calf looked dead when she got as far as the hips. Should we have tried to resusitate the calf then or just kept going and get her out first, like we did. Hate to loose a calf like that.

redzerologhlen

pakalasa wrote: »

I got a call from a neighbour yesterday to go have a look at a heifer that was having trouble calving. We managed to jack out the calf after a hard pull, but she was dead when we got her out. Heifer was fine and big at the hips but calf was very big, even though he requested an easy calving Lim bull. I suspect it was NHL...:mad:
We got the calf (heifer) as far as the hips but she got stuck there. It took a while to get her out fully then. My question is - the calf looked dead when she got as far as the hips. Should we have tried to resusitate the calf then or just kept going and get her out first, like we did. Hate to loose a calf like that.

Just wondering pak was the heifer lying or standing when ye were pulling? On another note and some of ye might laugh but I often seen the auld lad to put the cow up on her back if he was having a really hard calving, gives you a small bit more room. If a calf had enough of it got I would put my hand in his mouth and give him a good shake to try and get some of the fluids out and throw a bit of water into his ears when he gets on the ground.

Bizzum

pakalasa wrote: »

We got the calf (heifer) as far as the hips but she got stuck there. It took a while to get her out fully.

What would you be calling a while? I know when you're under pressure a few mins seem like an eternity!

pakalasa

redzerologhlen wrote: »

Just wondering pak was the heifer lying or standing when ye were pulling? On another note and some of ye might laugh but I often seen the auld lad to put the cow up on her back if he was having a really hard calving, gives you a small bit more room. If a calf had enough of it got I would put my hand in his mouth and give him a good shake to try and get some of the fluids out and throw a bit of water into his ears when he gets on the ground.

We had her standing first, then lying down on one side then the other. I know what you mean by putting her on her back, I've heard of that too. we tried the bucket of water on her too when she hit the ground.
I suppose it's one of those cases where you wonder if you could have done something different. When I got to the heifer first, the legs weren't showing but the blister was broken. The thing is it wasn't that hard a pull. I've pulled harder and the calves have lived.

Bizzum wrote: »

What would you be calling a while? I know when you're under pressure a few mins seem like an eternity!

About 10 mins I suppose. I was wondering could I have resusitated it while it was caught at the hips.

redzerologhlen

pakalasa wrote: »

We had her standing first, then lying down on one side then the other. I know what you mean by putting her on her back, I've heard of that too. we tried the bucket of water on her too when she hit the ground.
I suppose it's one of those cases where you wonder if you could have done something different. When I got to the heifer first, the legs weren't showing but the blister was broken. The thing is it wasn't that hard a pull. I've pulled harder and the calves have lived.



About 10 mins I suppose. I was wondering could I have resusitated it while it was caught at the hips.

Just a small thing but it happened us a few weeks ago. If they go down when you pulling and you get caught on the hips give the cows back leg a bit of a lift, calf came no prob when we did. Anyway you have to take the good with the bad, Im sure you did all that was possible. I have come to the conclusion that some calves just have more fight in them then others.

pakalasa

I'll remember that, thanks!

Bizzum

redzerologhlen wrote: »

Just a small thing but it happened us a few weeks ago. If they go down when you pulling and you get caught on the hips give the cows back leg a bit of a lift, calf came no prob when we did. Anyway you have to take the good with the bad, Im sure you did all that was possible. I have come to the conclusion that some calves just have more fight in them then others.

I've seen the very same, with moving the cows legs. On the jack too stuck at the hips I generally now change the calving ropes up above the knee. I would try all the angles I could get too, way to the left/right/top/bottom.
Sometimes they take a serious pull and all is well and other times they up and die. Such is life I suppose. Looks to me like you done all could be done for that one.

tanko

pakalasa wrote: »

I got a call from a neighbour yesterday to go have a look at a heifer that was having trouble calving. We managed to jack out the calf after a hard pull, but she was dead when we got her out. Heifer was fine and big at the hips but calf was very big, even though he requested an easy calving Lim bull. I suspect it was NHL...:mad:
We got the calf (heifer) as far as the hips but she got stuck there. It took a while to get her out fully then. My question is - the calf looked dead when she got as far as the hips. Should we have tried to resusitate the calf then or just kept going and get her out first, like we did. Hate to loose a calf like that.

Sounds like a cesarean is the only thing that would have saved that calf. Your neighbour might have left the heifer too long calving or maybe the pull killed the calf. The real damage was done when the NHL straw was put into her, pure madness for a heifer. Imagine how big the calf would have been if it was a bull.