when's calving starting??

dar31

Calving kicked off proper this week
48 calved in the last 7 days
Busy week and a bad dose of flu too just for that last bit of hardship

Timmaay

Had almost no prbs with PBM here, and plenty of him used. Cow here had a fooking huge JFK bull the other day. She calved in the night herself, and both her and the calf were fine thankfully. Hopefully sexed semen will solve some of the problems with hard calvings?

And 2bh I wouldn't be a fan of easy calving on utterly everything, you run the risk of breeding very narrow cows and compounding the problem. However one bull I'll be avoiding in the future is LHZ, just too many hard calvings.

biddy2013

awaywithyou wrote: »

Do you know of this stuff called Reviva...? Cows drink it after calving... Supposed to be good. Contains loads of calcium, vitamins and high in energy....

There's another one ymcp.

Greengrass1

Was milking one that calved two days ago and took the cluster off and down she went. Thankfully she got back up. Have her on pen on her own now but she is grand. It seems to just be all the old cows this is happening to.
Sick to the teeth of it now.
Ye can't go calling the knacker for every cow that goes down

dar31

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Was milking one that calved two days ago and took the cluster off and down she went. Thankfully she got back up. Have her on pen on her own now but she is grand. It seems to just be all the old cows this is happening to.
Sick to the teeth of it now.
Ye can't go calling the knacker for every cow that goes down

Must be a right pain at this stage
What are the dry cows being feed pre calving, are energy protein levels right in diet are these old ladies wore out after calving and not able for the stresses of milking, what's bcs like

Greengrass1

Seems to calcium locked up some how. Cow is up now

Greengrass1

dar31 wrote: »

Must be a right pain at this stage
What are the dry cows being feed pre calving, are energy protein levels right in diet are these old ladies wore out after calving and not able for the stresses of milking, what's bcs like

There getting 75DMD silage and .5kg 16% .95 ufl nut and what ever straw they eat out if the bed. BCS is very good tbh. None of the cows are under weight.
These would be the first cows born here 10 yes ago. They have been through a lot all the same

Milked out

Greengrass1 wrote: »

There getting 75DMD silage and .5kg 16% .95 ufl nut and what ever straw they eat out if the bed. BCS is very good tbh. None of the cows are under weight.
These would be the first cows born here 10 yes ago. They have been through a lot all the same

Maybe if you ran some straw thru the feeder for them with silage as if they are in good condition and on good silage + getting a bite of ration maybe they are in to good condition?? Also dunno your shed layout but here my cows near calving are in the pen near the milkers and the 2 I had to treat for clinical milk fever were the big old strong cows who used to always be at the gate dividing the groups trying to reach for the milkers mix, so I reckon that was part of the reason those 2 got it, but I put all meal thru the wagon, if yours are fed meal only in the parlour that wouldn't really matter

mf240

Fat cows.old cows. And very heavy milkers are all candidates.

Hope you solve it.

trixi2011

Greengrass1 wrote: »

There getting 75DMD silage and .5kg 16% .95 ufl nut and what ever straw they eat out if the bed. BCS is very good tbh. None of the cows are under weight.
These would be the first cows born here 10 yes ago. They have been through a lot all the same

You really do need to add magnesium of some sort to the diet IMO , wouldn't think it would be that expensive . You say other years you hadn't a problem but for all you know you may have had sub clinical milk fever . Often found giving cow selenium and vit b12 before calving also helps the energy side of things . Hope the bloods shed some light on the problem for you

Damo810

Greengrass1 wrote: »

There getting 75DMD silage and .5kg 16% .95 ufl nut and what ever straw they eat out if the bed. BCS is very good tbh. None of the cows are under weight.
These would be the first cows born here 10 yes ago. They have been through a lot all the same

Chances of it happening increase with age. BCS over 3.5 increases it too.

jaymla627

Timmaay wrote: »

Had almost no prbs with PBM here, and plenty of him used. Cow here had a fooking huge JFK bull the other day. She calved in the night herself, and both her and the calf were fine thankfully. Hopefully sexed semen will solve some of the problems with hard calvings?

And 2bh I wouldn't be a fan of easy calving on utterly everything, you run the risk of breeding very narrow cows and compounding the problem. However one bull I'll be avoiding in the future is LHZ, just too many hard calvings.

How do you reckon that theirs a link between a easy calving bull and narrow cows, the size of calves at birth surely dosent mean the resulting heifer calf/cow is going to have calving problems in the future?

Gillespy

Direct calving ease and maternal calving ease information is what you want. See it more regularly in beef sires. I don't think there's a link and even if there is I can think of loads of examples of easy calving bulls that sire big, wide cows. I've often heard that too though.

biddy2013

had one of those milkings this morning a load of fresh cows/heifers. 1 heifer kept turning around and moved up about 3 places in the row:mad: big omellette now for brekkie. Had a bull calf yesterday from a sexed semen straw the first bull from them, rest heifers

freedominacup

jaymla627 wrote: »

How do you reckon that theirs a link between a easy calving bull and narrow cows, the size of calves at birth surely dosent mean the resulting heifer calf/cow is going to have calving problems in the future?

Long ago proven maybe not on the first generation but will bite you in the ass fairly quickly. If you want easy calving select bull with wide rumps which have a huge number of other benfits from locomotion to udder attachment. Easy calving B&W sires ar ever decreasing circle which ends up with small frail cows. I would avoid bulls with raised calving difficulty figure but I would also avoid easy calving sires. Dry cow management is far more important than easy calving bulls.

sheebadog

freedominacup wrote: »

Long ago proven maybe not on the first generation but will bite you in the ass fairly quickly. If you want easy calving select bull with wide rumps which have a huge number of other benfits from locomotion to udder attachment. Easy calving B&W sires ar ever decreasing circle which ends up with small frail cows. I would avoid bulls with raised calving difficulty figure but I would also avoid easy calving sires. Dry cow management is far more important than easy calving bulls.

+1. Shout it from the rooftops!

Timmaay

Well if you have that problem (cows all too narrow), there is always JEx :P, as my AI man said, you could put them incalf to an elephant and they'd calf fine and be up licking 2mins later!

Brown Podzol

freedominacup wrote: »

Long ago proven maybe not on the first generation but will bite you in the ass fairly quickly. If you want easy calving select bull with wide rumps which have a huge number of other benfits from locomotion to udder attachment. Easy calving B&W sires ar ever decreasing circle which ends up with small frail cows. I would avoid bulls with raised calving difficulty figure but I would also avoid easy calving sires. Dry cow management is far more important than easy calving bulls.

Traditionally, yes, easy calving bulls bred frail cows but a modern phenomenon resulting in easy calving is the short gestation bull many of which are breeding robust cows.

milkprofit

66 in last 18 days 2 dead

sheebadog

I bought in some cows that weren't vaccinated with rotavec. Big mistake.
48 calved. 40 sick.
Fun. Fun.
And me with MANFLU'
Upside only 2 more to calve from this bunch.

jaymla627

freedominacup wrote: »

Long ago proven maybe not on the first generation but will bite you in the ass fairly quickly. If you want easy calving select bull with wide rumps which have a huge number of other benfits from locomotion to udder attachment. Easy calving B&W sires ar ever decreasing circle which ends up with small frail cows. I would avoid bulls with raised calving difficulty figure but I would also avoid easy calving sires. Dry cow management is far more important than easy calving bulls.

All the bulls I'm using are easy calving and all are also plus for maternal calving ease with milking daughters on the ground and over 90 % reliability, it's the beauty of using daughter proven bulls your 99% sure of what your getting

Timmaay

And tonights fun involved digging out the red lamp for a wk old AA who came down with a serious dose of scour, then went to look at the cubicles, found a calf at the end of them in the sh&te. Cow had calved in a cubicle and the scraper had pushed it right down! Thankfully the calf was fine. Abit annoyed it happened, but don't have a huge choice other than to leave scrapers on at the minute, have scc prbs and trying to keep cubicles clean as possible. The cow calved a wk early in any case, not much springing either. Anyways in moving her to the calving pin, she went down in the passengeway, so a bottle of calcium under the skin. Meanwhile another bloody cow had decided to get her head stuck in the gate of the calving pin, which was open while I was trying to get the other one in. Ended up with no choice but hacksaw part of the gate. The fresh calvers eventually gotup and wobbled into the shed. Joys of it all, can't wait to finish calving ha!

Calf at least was a heifer, I'm at 9 heifers from 13 frs so far, making up for a bad run before however!

stanflt

night shift

delaval

14 calved since morning, seems to have calmed for a while. I started feeding at night 7pm and I think it's having an effect.

Loath as I am to Sunday work I'm having a bowl of soup and going out to spread some slurry. We are going to be under pressure by next weekend. We didn't get much rain over night so I'll take any chance I get.

Greengrass1

delaval wrote: »

14 calved since morning, seems to have calmed for a while. I started feeding at night 7pm and I think it's having an effect.

Loath as I am to Sunday work I'm having a bowl of soup and going out to spread some slurry. We are going to be under pressure by next weekend. We didn't get much rain over night so I'll take any chance I get.

This week not supposed to be as wet as previous weeks. Might get cows out for whole week

delaval

Greengrass1 wrote: »

This week not supposed to be as wet as previous weeks. Might get cows out for whole week

Forecast was a little more promising last night

Did you let them out today?

Greengrass1

delaval wrote: »

Forecast was a little more promising last night

Did you let them out today?

Ye out today. Shed has turned to ****.
Straw bed starting to rot and its moving in the shed

harry molloy

I have 25% of the cows calved and the first one is not due until next friday. I was wondering is that some sort of record? By the look of them I could have 40% calved by my due date. All cows in calf to ai and dates in the icbf book

Deepsouthwest

harry molloy wrote: »

I have 25% of the cows calved and the first one is not due until next friday. I was wondering is that some sort of record? By the look of them I could have 40% calved by my due date. All cows in calf to ai and dates in the icbf book

That's pretty impressive alright, u must be using extremely short gestation bulls or jersey bulls to have that % calved a wk before time

Timmaay

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

That's pretty impressive alright, u must be using extremely short gestation bulls or jersey bulls to have that % calved a wk before time

I'm actually keeping track of how many days early (or late) each calving is, based off the predicted dates in my little icbf book, at the min the average is - 4.5days. My dad always goes on the 9 month rule, so would usual give me a due date that is about a week before the icbf dates. Could icbf not see which sires the cow is incalf to, and based on an expected gestation alter the due dates? (if it doesn't do this already?)

Deepsouthwest

Timmaay wrote: »

I'm actually keeping track of how many days early (or late) each calving is, based off the predicted dates in my little icbf book, at the min the average is - 4.5days. My dad always goes on the 9 month rule, so would usual give me a due date that is about a week before the icbf dates. Could icbf not see which sires the cow is incalf to, and based on an expected gestation alter the due dates? (if it doesn't do this already?)

Often wondered that myself. Surely they can't have a standard date for all bulls, huge differentiation between some breeds. Maybe they have gestation length for daughter proven bulls only. Must find this out. First calf due here yesterday(08/feb) and 33 cows already after calving

red bull

What breed are those cows in calf to ?

Bodacious

had a cottage devon DEZ dark yellow bull calf land there unassisted 292days (283 last year to same sire????)...overall had a great weekend at the calving ...2 bulls and a white BA X CH heifer

Greengrass1

One cow walked into parlour this morning. She was up grazing for the last two days. Should have put the other cow out in the field when she went down first

harry molloy

red bull wrote: »

What breed are those cows in calf to ?

All ai Angus, kya. Not bad calves considering they are 2 weeks early

Timmaay

Have a fair few heifers incalf to KYA, most are about a week early, earliest was 2wks. Some bull for easy calving!

Brown Podzol

harry molloy wrote: »

All ai Angus, kya. Not bad calves considering they are 2 weeks early

Just a question. If you go to the trouble of AIing a heifer why not use an easy calving dairy sire. After all your heifers are the most valuable genetically and a heifer calf from them would give you a valuable replacement.

Timmaay

We used dairy straws for the 1st time ever on heifers here last year (took fair effort to convince my dad to use them). I've had about 5 calf to fr so far, only one heifer, and have had to assist 3 of the bulls. More ourown fault than the dairystraw, as the heifers were overfat, but even still, I'll have a battle trying to convince him to go with them again. The only trick I have up my sleeve will be the sexed straws, at least a heifer tend to be smaller. Even still, I'll stick to the likes of heifers with EBIs of 150+, and with a decent bit of breeding behind them, everything else can get KYA or a similar AA (or the stockbull who is AA)

Brown Podzol

Timmaay wrote: »

We used dairy straws for the 1st time ever on heifers here last year (took fair effort to convince my dad to use them). I've had about 5 calf to fr so far, only one heifer, and have had to assist 3 of the bulls. More ourown fault than the dairystraw, as the heifers were overfat, but even still, I'll have a battle trying to convince him to go with them again. The only trick I have up my sleeve will be the sexed straws, at least a heifer tend to be smaller. Even still, I'll stick to the likes of heifers with EBIs of 150+, and with a decent bit of breeding behind them, everything else can get KYA or a similar AA (or the stockbull who is AA)

Personally I will AI all my heifers to easy calving Fr/ho but only daughter proven. I wouldn't trust a bull with only a genomic proof for easy calving. Yea I will be using sexed next year as well. I have dabbled with it over the past three years with good results. I was advised during the difficult AI seasons of 12 and 13 not to use sexed as conception would be low enough with conventional not to mind sexed but the few I used were fine.

Timmaay

Yeh all the ones I used were daughter proven and easy calving, mostly HMY and MZK. I've sexed JKF straws ordered, his CD is low at 1.5%, but not many daughters on the ground yet.

TEAT SQUEEZER

ai ìng maidens to fr is a no brainer if u want to increase stock no`s quickly.. some of the oman sons were as easy calving as could be. my tuppence worth on easy calving bulls bringing narrow daughters is that its not a given there are type figures availble on proven sires ( the only option for maidens imo) so choose using those.
nz genomic bulls more often or not have a calving season under their belt out there with big no`s so there is a proven calving ease for those bulls... granduer is v easy...

stanflt

80 cows calved since sept and had my first case of milk fever this morning- had no help so was panicking

Got a bottle into the vein and one under the skin and left her

Filled the diet feeder and came back to look at her and she was standing

Great satisfaction seeing her up

mf240

Had a pbm heifer out of an run cow this morning, nearly all black except for her legs, lovely little heifer.

Timmaay

I checked the springers as usual lastnight about 11.30, nothing happening so of to bed. Checked them again when I got up this morning, and found a dead calf lying flipped over on his head, the cow must of calved standing up. Annoying but not a huge amount I can do about the likes of that, at least it wasn't a heifer.

mahoney_j

Fookin bull calves 9 on the trot now ,.12 from 37 fr calvings .not impressed

blue5000

First one today

Greengrass1

mahoney_j wrote: »

Fookin bull calves 9 on the trot now ,.12 from 37 fr calvings .not impressed

Not too far behind me. 18 from 39

mahoney_j

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Not too far behind me. 18 from 39

That's not too bad nearly 50 50.met a guy that used 20 sexed straws all calved and had 5 bulls,what's going on there

cosatron

we have 3 heifers out of 12. I think everyone is on the same boat. my cousin had 3 sets of twins, all of them are bull/heifer. that would be very frustrated

Greengrass1

mahoney_j wrote: »

That's not too bad nearly 50 50.met a guy that used 20 sexed straws all calved and had 5 bulls,what's going on there

That's not bad. 75% is better than 50%.
Another 26 spring calvers left. Going to be a long drawn out affair