Calf dead after 2 days

FarmerGer

Hi - I am hoping somebody can enlighten me possibly ..

My cows 2nd calver cow (Limousin) calved a heifer calf on sunday evening - last night (tuesday ) i found the calf CHarlois stretceed out dead in the cubicle house.



The same cow last year also had a heifer calf - again the calf died after 6 days - calf was flying around in the field night before - Calf last year was a partenaise.

Just wondering if anybody has experienced this before


Must be something in the cow ....

Any comments welcome

Thanks
Ger

_Brian

Cull her.

Kovu

Unless you get a PM done on her, there's really nothing anybody here can do except speculate. It could be any number of things at all, from heart condition to plain bad luck.

FarmerGer

Thanks Lads

Farmer Pudsey

In general there is no point in giving cows a second chance. It is better to cull if somthing happens to a calf. This is especially true of heifers that calf. Not posting about this incident but sucklers in general most smaller operator have not got a process in place regarding culling. IMO it the major failing of smaler suckler farmer operation. It is only a matter of deciding on what type of suckler and whether you source from withing the herd or externally maybe from dairy cross stock.

If I was sourcing replacment from dairy cross stock I be buying a few heifers calves every year and trying to source from a good middle of the road or BF dairy farmer. Even if you do not use all these as replacments you can fatten the heifers or you can sell them with calves at foot or sell incalf. They will always cover costs. With this sort of system in place if an incident happen as above the heifer or cow is not carried empty for a year waiting for the next problem to arise.

By the way welcome onboard Ger.

Miname

I find May and June calves are always pretty slack calves. I don't know whether it's minerals or what but they always seem like they want to die on you. All I can emphasise is make sure they get loads of beistings, even when the cows been sucked il throw 2 litres into them regardless.

greysides

Was she 'kind' to the calf?

votuvant

I had a cow that allowed the calf suck for the first while after calving but then wouldn't let them suck after that. I used to keep her in and put her in crush 3 times a day to allow calf to suck. After a week she was fine but culled her cause it wasn't worth the hassle.

Could it be something similar?

FarmerGer

the calf sucked on sunday evening when she was born about 1 hr after her birth

the calf was grand yesterday morning - yesterday evening when i came from work the calf was dead . Plenty of room in the shed .

last year the calf died in the field with a visible dent on the calfs head - like as if the cow kicked the calf into the head ... but I was told that that was hightly unlikely by locak more experienced farmers ..... last years calf did have difficulty passing urine and vet at time of annual TB test gave calf a long last Antiobiotic injection .


Just very very coincental that the cow has lost two calves ... this time there was no impact visible ..

Obviously , The cow is now for the factory but Id like to know if the cow was lacking in something ....


Cow is a very quiet cow and took to both calves well


Very strange

whelan2

greysides wrote: »

Was she 'kind' to the calf?

had a cow that sat on her calf 2 years in a row:mad:

Kovu

whelan2 wrote: »

had a cow that sat on her calf 2 years in a row:mad:

There's a joke about babysitting in there somewhere

limerick farmer

just wondering did you draw the cow to see what the biestings was like and quantity?some sucklers have little enough milk even though they might have a good appearance just a thought tis a bit late now.

FarmerGer

Limerick farmer - No i didnt draw the tits to see what it was like - but the calf was sucking away. Disapointed with the whole thing tbh

onyerbikepat

OP, do you have many cows? Just wondering if you missed something obvious, like calf licking old batteries, cow attacking calf etc.

FarmerGer

Ive enough of them ! .. no there was no batteries or anything like that . both calves apeared to be healthy, Cow looked and behaved like a great mother to them and both died quickly . I know I will nevery ever know unless I get test done . even then they will not be conslusinve I guess

Bellview

agree with Cull, I had a cow something similar... her first calf lived and died at about 18 months ped AA bull - we had sold him to dairy man and when he was done with him he found him dead on day, the next calf she had after about 6 weeks. we held the cow a year as we were building up numbers at the time. The following year she had another calf and it died again after 6 weeks ...we put it down to genetic weakness & culled her as three dead was too much conincidence

FarmerGer

its sickening bellview alright . and disapointing