Calving 2018 - Advise and Help thread

charolais0153

Sugarbowl wrote: »

Getting minerals but not excessive.

She did suck this morning but poor attempt all the same. Has a bit of scour now so will put a synulox back the throat. Won't take the bottle for me either so very hard to get liquids into her. Just holds the nipple in the mouth.

Anyone got a good cure for scour? We have a couple here this year already. It's sickening to see.

Might be just a stupid one. Keep them going for a week or so and they usually get the hang of it eventually.its vital that he doesnt get dehydrated tho so tube him or something

Sugarbowl

Don't get me wrong - he's sucking, just not like the other calves. He gives up faster than the others his age. Got a litre of water with a sachet into him during the day. Will see how tonight goes now.

Angus2018

2 days of hardship here trying to look after that premature calf but eventually got it up and suckling the mother after having it under a heat lamp and bottling it. It's stick thin and gets cold easy so wrapped it up in a dog jacket since the regular calf ones are too big. Should survive now!

Lady Haywire

Angus2018 wrote: »

2 days of hardship here trying to look after that premature calf but eventually got it up and suckling the mother after having it under a heat lamp and bottling it. It's stick thin and gets cold easy so wrapped it up in a dog jacket since the regular calf ones are too big. Should survive now!

I learned the hard way to never count them as survivors until they get past their supposed due date

whelan2

Calved a cow there now. Absolute monster of an angus bull. Cow never gets down to calving. Under some pressure with the jack. Big fat fook of a cow. 3 years in a row same calving with her.

Angus2018

Lady Haywire wrote: »

I learned the hard way to never count them as survivors until they get past their supposed due date

I know that the hard way, had a cow calve a small calf, a little premature so bottled it and eventually got it suckling. Very slow to move and do anything but was ok so I let it out to the field. I was looking at it a few days later thinking I'd never seen it run, right in front of me it took a few steps and then just fell down and that was it. Off to the lab and it turned out it had heart failure and was a miracle it even survived out of the womb, should have been dead on birth.

Premature calf is doing well, bouncing around the pen, mother doesn't have enough milk so I have it on milk replacer too, going to up the feed today since there are no signs of digestive problems.

Lady Haywire

Angus2018 wrote: »

I know that the hard way, had a cow calve a small calf, a little premature so bottled it and eventually got it suckling. Very slow to move and do anything but was ok so I let it out to the field. I was looking at it a few days later thinking I'd never seen it run, right in front of me it took a few steps and then just fell down and that was it. Off to the lab and it turned out it had heart failure and was a miracle it even survived out of the womb, should have been dead on birth.

Premature calf is doing well, bouncing around the pen, mother doesn't have enough milk so I have it on milk replacer too, going to up the feed today since there are no signs of digestive problems.

That's good to hear! Mine dropped dead with a heart murmur just at its proper due date, think it was about a month old by then.

squinn2912

Had a cow calves 3 days ago lovely heifer calf. Next night I was giving the weanlings their meal and I said I’d give the calves girls a wee chip and she didn’t get up. My dad landed and I asked him how she was all day he reckoned fine. I put her up and she sniffed about. We left it like that. Bad mistake the next morning she was lying out with fellen and the vet measured her at 107 degrees. She’s feeding again yesterday and looking for the calf but it’s as close as you could come. My motto is that it’s better to overreact but I abandoned it this time lucky didn’t lose the cow

tanko

Have you got your own thermometer?
Its a very useful thing to have.

squinn2912

That would be a great addition!

Lady Haywire

I stole the one from the house :D

tanko

The digital one is a great job, very easy to use.

whelan2

Cant wait for calving to be over

squinn2912

I Know it’ll be a relief. Will be easier from here on in I think though.

Lady Haywire

Have a wee break for a while here, all calved & nothing due til next week. All my worrisome cows are due at the start of May so will be switching them into the one pen & put on hay & oats & minerals for 6 weeks if I can.

Angus2018

Break here for about 8-10 days and then back in hard. Will be finished in 7 weeks time, few heifers dragging out the season. I don't really mind since the farm looks worse than when I closed it before housing.

squinn2912

Bit of a break here too or at least they’ve slowed. Heifers/second calvers stretching the season but the bull is out with replacements now so next year we should be tightened up... at the expense of AI. Synchronizing didn’t work great for us so if anything I think you’re better with the early calf and get a shot of estrumate into some cows for AI instead of heifers. Am I making any sense?

Who2

squinn2912 wrote: »

Bit of a break here too or at least they’ve slowed. Heifers/second calvers stretching the season but the bull is out with replacements now so next year we should be tightened up... at the expense of AI. Synchronizing didn’t work great for us so if anything I think you’re better with the early calf and get a shot of estrumate into some cows for AI instead of heifers. Am I making any sense?

It’ll be far from tight next year if you have the bull out now. By the time you have the last calves, bulled you’ll be fairly spread. You’ve hope for the next year if you hold the bull back.

antrimite

antrimite wrote: »

First post on here, great reading all the stories.

Had our first casualty at the weekend, first calver had a lovely APZ heifer calf which needed a slight pull, nothing major, calf never got up and died shortly after it came out at 282 days gestation. Was no airways problems or long labour. A mystery to us. Disappointing as she would have been a lovely replacment down the line. Batch of 3 heifers more calving any day to APZ so hoping for incident free labours!

Have seen a plenty of posts on here re: calves not wanting to suck, must definitely be a Simmental thing as we would have plenty every year who get up and nose around the teats but never latch on, have had plenty of kicks for my troubles! Seems to be the bigger calves that always have issues with

2 more APZ bull calves on the ground from first Calvers. First one calves at 288 days on her own inside an hour, calf came out as easy as I ever seen. She’s our best heifer so would have liked a heifer but he’s thriving well. The next calf came with aid of the calving jack. Feet came but no progress iber an hour so we gave her help. Big lump of a bull calf. 290days! One last heifer to go. A month ago we questioned whether she was still in Calf and now at 294 days!!

On a worse note our stock bull (the afore mentioned heifers sire), has went down with TB. Disaster

Who2

antrimite wrote: »

2 more APZ bull calves on the ground from first Calvers. First one calves at 288 days on her own inside an hour, calf came out as easy as I ever seen. She’s our best heifer so would have liked a heifer but he’s thriving well. The next calf came with aid of the calving jack. Feet came but no progress iber an hour so we gave her help. Big lump of a bull calf. 290days! One last heifer to go. A month ago we questioned whether she was still in Calf and now at 294 days!!

On a worse note our stock bull (the afore mentioned heifers sire), has went down with TB. Disaster

Awful to say but your lucky you got bulls. Apz progeny are a disaster to calve, I’d say the worst pelvises out there. I wouldn’t let him around the place and there’s plenty that have had the same issue.

charolais0153

Who2 wrote: »

It’ll be far from tight next year if you have the bull out now. By the time you have the last calves, bulled you’ll be fairly spread. You’ve hope for the next year if you hold the bull back.

Ya we would have always have been trying to calve them earlier every year but this year we started on a certain date and a lot of thecows were cycling so they came fairly rapid. Should mean a tighter calving season next year

antrimite

Who2 wrote: »

antrimite wrote: »

2 more APZ bull calves on the ground from first Calvers. First one calves at 288 days on her own inside an hour, calf came out as easy as I ever seen. She’s our best heifer so would have liked a heifer but he’s thriving well. The next calf came with aid of the calving jack. Feet came but no progress iber an hour so we gave her help. Big lump of a bull calf. 290days! One last heifer to go. A month ago we questioned whether she was still in Calf and now at 294 days!!

On a worse note our stock bull (the afore mentioned heifers sire), has went down with TB. Disaster

Awful to say but your lucky you got bulls. Apz progeny are a disaster to calve, I’d say the worst pelvises out there. I wouldn’t let him around the place and there’s plenty that have had the same issue.

Really? Our AI man had a batch of APZ heifers calved to Limousin and had no problems at all.

Replacing the stock bull will now be priority as we have a batch of heifers ready to go with him next month... any Simmental recommendations? Replacement stars definitely our Priorty as we don’t finish stores

Who2

antrimite wrote: »

Really? Our AI man had a batch of APZ heifers calved to Limousin and had no problems at all.

Replacing the stock bull will now be priority as we have a batch of heifers ready to go with him next month... any Simmental recommendations? Replacement stars definitely our Priorty as we don’t finish stores

I’ve had a couple sectioned all and what was left was sold as commercial. A friend had a lot and pure hassle too. Isl or fifty cent seems to be working well. I’ve an isl heifer here that I didn’t like that has turned inside out.

charolais0153

Who2 wrote: »

I’ve had a couple sectioned all and what was left was sold as commercial. A friend had a lot and pure hassle too. Isl or fifty cent seems to be working well. I’ve an isl heifer here that I didn’t like that has turned inside out.

Am planning on using isl on one or 2 cows this year. On figures alone, hes the best simmental in my opinion.

Who2

charolais0153 wrote: »

Am planning on using isl on one or 2 cows this year. On figures alone, hes the best simmental in my opinion.

Savage growth in my one when she hit twelve months.

patsy_mccabe

charolais0153 wrote: »

Am planning on using isl on one or 2 cows this year. On figures alone, hes the best simmental in my opinion.

Have a look at his Linear Figures. Muscle scores are in the bottom 2% of the breed. I've never used him so no experience here.

charolais0153

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Have a look at his Linear Figures. Muscle scores are in the bottom 2% of the breed. I've never used him so no experience here.

That has nothing to with his progeny though. Hes above the simmental aveage for carcase confirmation.

valtra2

Had my last heifer calf yesterday. So she was calving for about two or three hours legs out for about a hour so I said I would step in. Bag was not after bursting so I decided to pull she was well open and all OK. So I cut bag and put on ropes and just gave her a pull by hand to see how tight she was going to be. So was lubbing her up and next thing I saw her Tring to breath and bag was still over her and she sucking in bag so I panicked and had thejack beside all ready to go. She came out with a good pull but got caught at hips for 30 seconds or so but got her out. It was a panic from the minute I saw her suckling in the bag. She was OK and cow got up 10 minuets later. What I want to know is would she live for long if I had not pulled really quick. Never seen a calf doing that before so all what I know went out the window and panic insued. Both are ok. But I had to lie down for a while was fxxked

charolais0153

valtra2 wrote: »

Had my last heifer calf yesterday. So she was calving for about two or three hours legs out for about a hour so I said I would step in. Bag was not after bursting so I decided to pull she was well open and all OK. So I cut bag and put on ropes and just gave her a pull by hand to see how tight she was going to be. So was lubbing her up and next thing I saw her Tring to breath and bag was still over her and she sucking in bag so I panicked and had thejack beside all ready to go. She came out with a good pull but got caught at hips for 30 seconds or so but got her out. It was a panic from the minute I saw her suckling in the bag. She was OK and cow got up 10 minuets later. What I want to know is would she live for long if I had not pulled really quick. Never seen a calf doing that before so all what I know went out the window and panic insued. Both are ok. But I had to lie down for a while was fxxked

Sounds like most of our calvings

greysides

My guess would be that the oxygen supply to the calf was for some reason compromised necessitating it to breath sooner than normal. I'd say you had a max of 2, maybe 3, minutes to get her out but that's another guess.

Mooooo

Pulled a big heifer calf out of a cow at 3.30 this morning, no need for a jack calf drank biestings and then got up within 5 minutes of being fed. Come out this morn and calf was struggling to breathe turned out the cow and came back to her and calf was dead. Assuming cow lay or stepped on calf during the night, balls as I'm short of heifers. Tis outside the door and pales in comparison to other problems but annoying when the seemingly perfectly healthy ones are lost

Lady Haywire

Mooooo wrote: »

Pulled a big heifer calf out of a cow at 3.30 this morning, no need for a jack calf drank biestings and then got up within 5 minutes of being fed. Come out this morn and calf was struggling to breathe turned out the cow and came back to her and calf was dead. Assuming cow lay or stepped on calf during the night, balls as I'm short of heifers. Tis outside the door and pales in comparison to other problems but annoying when the seemingly perfectly healthy ones are lost

That's annoying. Came very close to the same happening when a little heifer calved here during the week. She leapt up after calving and spun round and roared, acting the usual heifer I suppose. But then she sniffed it and leapt in the air and one foot came down on the calfs belly, poor wee calf let out a baa that a sheep would be proud of and the whole fecking shed of cattle started to roar.

K.G.

Mooooo wrote: »

Pulled a big heifer calf out of a cow at 3.30 this morning, no need for a jack calf drank biestings and then got up within 5 minutes of being fed. Come out this morn and calf was struggling to breathe turned out the cow and came back to her and calf was dead. Assuming cow lay or stepped on calf during the night, balls as I'm short of heifers. Tis outside the door and pales in comparison to other problems but annoying when the seemingly perfectly healthy ones are lost

I have a pen of calves that are bordered by straw bales which im using away.yesterday i found a heifer had got up on the bale(it was abit broken) and fallen down in side it to the gap between rounds,stone dead.feck sake

squinn2912

Who2 wrote: »

squinn2912 wrote: »

Bit of a break here too or at least they’ve slowed. Heifers/second calvers stretching the season but the bull is out with replacements now so next year we should be tightened up... at the expense of AI. Synchronizing didn’t work great for us so if anything I think you’re better with the early calf and get a shot of estrumate into some cows for AI instead of heifers. Am I making any sense?

It’ll be far from tight next year if you have the bull out now. By the time you have the last calves, bulled you’ll be fairly spread. You’ve hope for the next year if you hold the bull back.

I’m more hoping to have the heifers calving earlier each year

Never wrestle with pigs

K.G. wrote: »

I have a pen of calves that are bordered by straw bales which im using away.yesterday i found a heifer had got up on the bale(it was abit broken) and fallen down in side it to the gap between rounds,stone dead.feck sake

Very same happened last year here. I was lucky to see it intime. Calf hadn't much left in it but came grand after a day. Could have been there a day. Only noticed that the cow wasn't sucked and went looking for the calf. Not a peep out of him. Took me a while to find him I thought he was robbed out of the shed as he definitely couldn't have gotten out. Put a right fear in me not to have a half broke up bale in that position again.

The Rabbi

K.G. wrote: »

I have a pen of calves that are bordered by straw bales which im using away.yesterday i found a heifer had got up on the bale(it was abit broken) and fallen down in side it to the gap between rounds,stone dead.feck sake

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Very same happened last year here. I was lucky to see it intime. Calf hadn't much left in it but came grand after a day. Could have been there a day. Only noticed that the cow wasn't sucked and went looking for the calf. Not a peep out of him. Took me a while to find him I thought he was robbed out of the shed as he definitely couldn't have gotten out. Put a right fear in me not to have a half broke up bale in that position again.

My cousins husband was up on the bales getting hay for the horses one morning and slipped head first down between the rounds.Wife and two young children left behind.

john mayo 10

Had a cow calf yesterday morning. Some assistance but nothing mental. Calf up within an hour but wont suck. Tubed him and he will put teak into his mouth but licks instead of sucks. Any suggedtions

Lady Haywire

john mayo 10 wrote: »

Had a cow calf yesterday morning. Some assistance but nothing mental. Calf up within an hour but wont suck. Tubed him and he will put teak into his mouth but licks instead of sucks. Any suggedtions

Honey on the false teat to encourage sucking & move him to the real one, stimulate the roof of his mouth with your finger or the easy, lazy way is get a shot from the vets! Most make up one that should bring on sucking.

Make sure he's had a shít though, most calves that are poor to suck here get going one they've had a finger up the butt to get them pushing the meconium out.

john mayo 10

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Honey on the false teat to encourage sucking & move him to the real one, stimulate the roof of his mouth with your finger or the easy, lazy way is get a shot from the vets! Most make up one that should bring on sucking.

Make sure he's had a shít though, most calves that are poor to suck here get going one they've had a finger up the butt to get them pushing the meconium out.

Got a shot from the vet. Sucked a bottle with teat after an hour. He wouldnt suck her though. Ch bull calf. Will try later again. Heading in the right direction though

john mayo 10

No change with him. Tried him under cow. Put honey on the teat. Will not suck. Tried him with bottle and teat and sucked straight away.

High bike

john mayo 10 wrote: »

No change with him. Tried him under cow. Put honey on the teat. Will not suck. Tried him with bottle and teat and sucked straight away.

if he's sucking the bottle hell suck the cow when he's hungry enough

jd06

Lady Haywire wrote:

Honey on the false teat to encourage sucking & move him to the real one, stimulate the roof of his mouth with your finger or the easy, lazy way is get a shot from the vets! Most make up one that should bring on sucking.

What do the vets give them

Lady Haywire

jd06 wrote: »

What do the vets give them

I think it's Duphafral forte, not 100% sure. Maybe Greysides can say for sure.
There used to be a great shot called mederantil that worked in exactly 15 minutes, you could almost time the calf to start sucking it's tongue. Seems to be gone off the market now though:mad:

john mayo 10

Finally got him sucking the cow this morning. Hunger and a bit of help and hes away. Thank god

Limestone Cowboy

Any advice on how to stay functioning with no sleep? Be glad when the burst is over.

charolais0153

Limestone Cowboy wrote: »

Any advice on how to stay functioning with no sleep? Be glad when the burst is over.

Many calving atm or is it just complications

Limestone Cowboy

charolais0153 wrote: »

Many calving atm or is it just complications

Ah they are coming handy enough but still have to watch them, had 10 in the last 5 days but up all night keeping an eye on them. Had to bring one down out of the winterage at 3am this morning that didn't suck and wait for beatings to thaw then . Running on empty today and have another two sick to calf.

Mooooo

Limestone Cowboy wrote: »

Any advice on how to stay functioning with no sleep? Be glad when the burst is over.

Sleep when you can, eat properly plenty water. If I could only take my own advice...

squinn2912

It’s a bit like having a journey to do while driving tired. Get a coffee and ensure you’re watching out for small things like backing the tractor in the yard. If you can grab an hour here and there it’ll stand to you. I got a girl calved at 5 yesterday morning then went up to the house and watched football on iplayer. Don’t do that! Get clean and try to get some bit of sleep into you.

tanko

Have you a friend or neighbour that could keep an eye on things while you catch up on sleep even if its only for one night.